


A Ballad of Guilt and Grief

by songbvrd



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Fix-It, M/M, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Thomas is in love, Unrequited Love, book and movie combination, first chapter could be a standalone, first chapter is canon compliant, newt has lost his memories, newt is only mentioned in the first chap but he will be back i promise, sort of unrequited, thomas and gally become friends, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:35:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29022066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbvrd/pseuds/songbvrd
Summary: Weeks after the fall of WICKED, the Gladers are in the Safe Haven, but Gally's guilt leads him to trying to protect Thomas from his grief and everyone else's expectations.He understands more about Thomas and Newt's relationship than anyone expected him to, so when he finds out Newt isn't really dead, he's unusually happy to be able to reunite them.(Chapter 1 is canon compliant and focuses on Gally and Thomas' growing friendship, the following chapters will feature Newt).
Relationships: Gally & Thomas (Maze Runner), Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner)
Comments: 169
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't know where this one came from, but I really wanted to combine book and movie verse and do something to this effect, specifically acknowledging that one deleted scene from TDC where Newt talks about how he and Gally actually used to be good friends.
> 
> I hope people like this! Please feel free to leave any/all comments!

Gally had made a lot of mistakes in his life. He wasn’t naive about that, he knew who he was. He knew he’d made plenty of undoable mistakes. No matter how hard he tried.

What little he could do, he figured, he would do in honour of his friends. 

He had no love lost for Teresa, but Newt, Chuck, Winston. They had all died because of their love for their friends. Newt particularly, who had been a close friend of Gally’s back in the Glade, a lifetime ago, was always a protector. The ‘Glue’, as it were. Even Gally, for all his panic and anger, had been able to see the effect he had on the others.

The voice of reason. The one who calmed them. The one who brought them back from the edge of irrationality and overwhelming emotion. 

Particularly Thomas.

Of those left living, Gally probably owed Thomas the most. How convenient, then, that honouring his lost friends  _ was _ protecting Thomas. 

It had first struck him back in the Glade, a lifetime before. How Thomas and Newt were with each other. He hadn’t placed it then, it had just irritated him. At the time, he had assumed Thomas just had some sort of evil pull over his friends. He was paranoid, terrified and uncontrollable. He was scared of leaving the maze, and WICKED used that. He was their antagonist, their final hurdle.

He put a more concrete understanding to it in the Scorch. When Thomas nearly knocked his block off and Newt had talked him down. Gally didn’t fight back then; he had no right to. And even if he had, he wasn’t sure he had that fire left. Not after countless days seeing Chuck everywhere, hating himself for what he’d done while stung and manipulated. If any of them wanted to tear him to shuck pieces, he would let them. Easily. Maybe he even wanted that, for a time.

But he had realised then that their relationship wasn’t  _ just  _ Thomas’ ability to get to people. Newt got to him too. It was clear. In the way they talked. In the way they looked at each other. And Gally understood, because Newt had always been one of the only people even verging on capable of talking him down, but this was different. They were different. He didn’t realise he was keeping tabs, collecting information, but he was.

He made note of Thomas’ reaction when he pulled Newt to the ground to avoid the train that nearly flattened them both. In theory, he should’ve let Thomas go back for Newt. Thomas was quicker than either Gally or Newt, Gally with his one good lung and Newt with his one good leg. But there were two parts to his decision. The first, Gally did actually care for Newt. Not that same way Thomas obviously did, but they had been friends at a point. Real, genuine friends. Good friends. Second, because he needed to win Thomas’ trust back. And how better than to save the person Thomas obviously cared so much about? He had noted the way Thomas’ face seized up when he wasn’t sure if Newt was okay. The way he had rushed forward, like for a second, everything had depended on whether or not the blond boy got to his feet again. 

Then there was the time Newt had gotten in Thomas’ face, shoved him up against the wall. It was obvious then, to everybody, that Newt wasn’t immune. The way his entire attitude changed so quick. And Gally, having spent three years in that maze with Newt, knew better than anyone in that group how out of character that was. How much of a red flag it was. But there was something else too. It was clearly the Flare making him act that way, but there was more to it. The thing that had set him off. Jealousy. And maybe it was mostly about Minho, Gally was sure it was, but he didn’t miss the implications of Newt referring to Teresa as Thomas’ girlfriend. Gally hated Teresa at least as much as the others did, but that wasn’t  _ just  _ hate. 

By the time they had kidnapped Teresa, Gally was pretty certain of what was going on. At least from Newt’s end of things. He started to see the way his demeanour changed when she was brought up. He started to see the way Newt stole glances. He started to see how hard he was trying to act fine, and how much more clearly that was true in front of his best friend. Whenever it had seemed like Teresa and Thomas were getting too close, Gally had taken it upon himself to intercede. Partly out of loyalty, but partly out of distrust. 

Gally knew he’d given these people every reason to distrust him, and truthfully, he still didn’t entirely trust Thomas, but Teresa was another story. He had no reason at all to trust her at all, in any capacity. The only female Glader was directly responsible for the mazes. For the grievers and for what had happened with Chuck (not that he relieved himself of any of that culpability either). She was directly responsible for Minho’s torture and for Newt having to go out into the open despite his illness. He could say it was entirely his hatred that led him to keep getting between the two of them, or not trusting Thomas around her, and both of things were probably true, but it was also a weird sense of loyalty to Newt. The feeling that they should have at least had the decency not to be like this in front of him while he was sick. Since Gally had always been good at being the hardass, it was easy to get away with it without seeming obvious.

Then they were inside the Last City, and shit was constantly getting worse, and Gally was beginning to feel like it was all hopeless anyway, like it was a failed mission before they started. But he wanted revenge, for what had been done to him and for what they had made him do. On top of that, he figured, if nothing else, he owed these people his loyalty now. His help. Minho, Thomas, Frypan and Newt had gone through hell trying to make things better. Trying to get immune kids away from that suffering. Gally had gone to his own efforts, but they were different, and this was bigger.

The final surge of understanding was when they were hunched outside of the WICKED building, trying desperately to get back to the berg in time to get the serum to Newt before he went full crank on them. And that had clicked things into place, because Gally had seen, first hand, the way Thomas was coping with it all. Or not coping, was probably more accurate. The shank didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, but Gally had seen the way he was looking. The genuine fear in his eyes as he watched Minho and Newt talk, watched Newt cough and try to pull himself together. He remembered clearly what he had said then, that they were going to make it. And there was no manipulation in that. No ulterior motive. He was just struck with the need to somehow reassure. To try to help, even if there was nothing else he could actually do.

He’d offered to run with Minho, but no one in their party was really up to it. Minho had lost too much blood, Gally had only one functional lung and Newt was on death’s door. Really, honestly, it should probably have been Thomas who ran for the serum, but there was some kind of understanding, some current of unspoken knowledge, that they couldn’t ask Thomas to leave Newt’s side. No one suggested it, and so Gally offered to protect Minho, to cover his back, to get them there quicker. He put absolutely everything into it, going as far and as fast as he was able, stopping any threat before it could get to the man who had once thrown a spear right through him. 

He heard the intercom, same as everybody else. He heard the announcement that Thomas was the cure. He wasn’t anywhere close enough for Thomas to hear him, but he wanted to shout not to listen to her, he wanted to  _ question  _ why the hell ‘come back to me’ was a phrase she would use if she were genuinely trying to help people rather than trying to manipulate Thomas. 

He didn’t know exactly when or how it’d happened, but at a point, he actually had come to care about the stupid Greenie. 

By the time they got to the Safe Haven, alive, barely, Gally found himself resolute on something he never saw coming. If Newt was gone, after always protecting and looking out for everyone else, then Gally would try to step up and do the same.

He was no nurturer, not in the least bit, but there were some things he could offer. Just noticing, for a start. He, Thomas, Frypan and Minho were the only Maze A Gladers left standing. And it wasn’t that he was any less broken than any of them, exactly, but he knew that all that loss had affected them differently than him. He’d been there to witness Minho and Frypan fall to their knees beside Newt’s body. He’d been there to witness Thomas recede into himself, his personality all but disappearing in the weeks following the fall of WICKED.

Mostly, what he offered were basic things. For Minho, he was sometimes a punching bag. He would let Minho go off at him, he would spar with him if he needed it. For Frypan, it was usually little more than silent company. They had never been that close, but he knew the boy was never much for communicating through words. For Thomas, it became a weird kind of protection.

Gally became, weirdly enough, almost like some kind of shank bodyguard. 

People always wanted something from Thomas. An answer or a conversation. The first time he stepped in was because someone called him ‘Tommy’. He’d never seen the Greenie look so  _ fragile  _ about something, so on edge, and if he could respond with appropriate anger, Gally would do it for him. He clocked the person without thinking, and that was the end of that. No more dredging up old nicknames. 

As the days dragged into weeks, Gally would often see girls approach him, and, knowing (or perhaps suspecting) that Thomas wasn’t really up to it, not up to the flirting or to the polite rejection he would be expected to give, he would step in. Not quite so violently, but not exactly subtly either. He would sit between them, or right in their space, and interrupt the conversation repeatedly until the person got the hint and left.

More than once, he outright told someone to bugger off and leave him alone. Thomas rarely acknowledged it, but on occasion, he would nod at Gally, shoot him a grateful look, and Gally would just nod back. 

And he was doing it for Newt, sort of, but at some point, it became apparent how badly off the kid was. At some point, it stopped being about paying respect to his dead friend, and became about actually helping Thomas. Because as much as he had once loathed him, he got him a bit more now. Because on those days where Gally would have to step in, where things seemed to be affecting him extra badly, Gally would really notice how  _ young  _ the Greenie was. And, shuck, Gally was too, they were all just kids, but not all of them had had the literal weight of the world on their shoulders the way he had. And while people mostly left the rest of them alone now, people still looked at him like they expected something from him. Like he should have answers. Like he should know better.

If Gally knew anything, it was that none of them had a fucking clue what they were doing. They never had. They had all just been terrified, manipulated kids put in danger without their permission or consent. So if Gally had to play the villain a bit longer to keep people from harassing the poor guy until he couldn’t take it anymore, he was willing to do that. Hell, it was a more natural fit for him anyway, and at least he still offered something to their group.

It was nearly two months before Gally ever actually tried to speak to Thomas about any of it. They did talk, sometimes, but it was mostly small talk, and not that often anyway. But Gally had taken to sitting beside Thomas, allowing him space to make sure someone else couldn’t, to make sure he wasn’t crowded by questioning eyes or longing gazes. And Thomas seemed more comfortable when he did, because they both knew Gally was never looking to have some long talk with him, and frankly, silence was better for them both.

Gally had settled easily into his new role within the Safe Haven, his protector position, and it gave him an excuse to not think about how broken he was personally. And he knew he was. All that forgetting. All that pain, all that terror, all that loss, all that guilt. He felt it as strongly as any of them. He knew, was self-aware enough to know, that he was avoiding himself. Avoiding his own thoughts by focusing on them. But hey, he grew up fast in the Scorch, it was sort of an inevitability. Still, he figured maybe he was going some small way to repay his debt to these people. The Gladers were the closest thing to a family he would ever have, and with only four of them remaining breathing, there was no going back from that point.

They were sitting at dinner one evening when Gally finally got up the nerve to say what he had wanted to for a long time. 

“I miss him too, y’know.”

He hadn’t ever mentioned Newt out loud to Thomas. Not since it happened. Things were touch and go with Thomas and his wound for the first few days, and after that, no one had really wanted to talk about Newt. His presence was already haunting them, the undeniable heartbreak that none of them had gotten over. He was the best of them, and there was no denying it. He could feel it, that missing link, in every interaction any of the four of them had. And he was sure, as sure as he was of anything in this life, that Thomas missed him a helluva lot more than Gally did. 

Even still, Gally had some fond memories of the former second-in-command. All of those were from before he was stung, from before things got turned upside down. Then again, Gally had been out of his own control for so much of the goings on after Thomas had been brought into the maze. He remembered how Newt had always been so good with the Greenies. They had all stuck to him like glue when they first got there. He had a way about him, patience and consideration without ever being condescending. It was certainly a skill Gally didn’t have, and while he and Newt rarely saw eye to eye, he could respect what he brought to their Glade. He was a vital part of it all, as they all were.

Thomas glanced up at him, and he looked really aware for the first time in a few days. His eyes were framed by dark circles from lack of sleep, and bloodshot from crying, and Gally couldn’t blame him, nor did he wish to draw any attention to it. 

“What?” He asked, seemingly surprised by the admission.

Gally didn’t particularly want to say his name, if only for Thomas’ sake, “I miss him too.”

Apparently, Thomas hadn’t expected Gally to understand. Maybe he thought Gally assumed this grief was over Teresa. Maybe he just didn’t realise Gally cared about Newt at all. But Gally was bloody sure he hadn’t pegged this one wrong.

Thomas’ dark eyes searched Gally’s face, and it was a scrutiny he wasn’t really used to or comfortable with. He cleared his throat in discomfort, but Thomas didn’t cease, and Gally didn’t try to make him. He knew he was at his wits end, and he knew why. After a few long moments of attentive staring, Thomas’ eyes welled with tears again, and he averted his eyes, saying nothing. 

“Thought you were gonna say something about her.” Thomas managed. Gally shrugged in response. He was sure Thomas still had some feelings towards her. Gally personally wouldn’t have pissed on her if she was on fire, but that was a separate issue. But he also wasn’t blind. While he was sure that contributed greatly to the grief, he also didn’t think for a second it was the same kind of grief. 

“Nah.” Gally said quietly, not looking at Thomas, as if trying to give him the privacy of reacting however he wanted. “Saw the way you guys were together. Figured it was about him.” He wasn’t trying to assert anything either— it wasn’t a callout. It was more like… an acknowledgement. An explanation, maybe, of what he was doing. He was absolutely certain Thomas had noticed, and certain, based on his responses, that he realised Gally was doing it out of loyalty and not to be a slinthead. He was sure he still was sometimes, but he was actively trying to make some amends. 

Thomas sniffed. “That’s why…?” He asked, not clarifying. Gally didn’t need it.

“Yeah. That.” He nodded, “Also just figured… you could use a break, Greenie. You don’t need’a be anything for anyone anymore. You should be able to just… be.”

“Good that.” Thomas said quietly, but it didn’t quite sound natural coming from this mouth. “How’d you know?”

Gally sighed. Thomas didn’t elaborate, but Gally didn’t really need him to. “A series of unfortunate events.” He said slowly, before clarifying, “I paid attention.”

“Thanks.” He said quietly, and Gally wondered if he was the only one who’d acknowledged it without shoving it in his face. It was possible. “I liked when you told that girl to leave.”

They smiled at each other, and it felt really good. Neither of them were close to healing. Maybe neither of them ever would heal. But Gally got to feel like he was repaying his debt to his friends and looking after someone his late friend loved, and Thomas got to exist without anyone asking anything of him. 

“Yeah, well… you’re too soft to do it, so I thought someone should.” He almost joked, said sometning like ‘ _ don’t they know your boyfriend just died? _ ’ but he knew it wouldn’t be funny, and though it had taken twenty odd years, he finally learned to hold his tongue. Sometimes. 

Thomas laughed half heartedly, and nodded. “What, uh, what happens to the Chosen One when all the saving the day is over?”

Gally sighed, looking down at him. He was just a kid. They were all just kids. Kids tortured and twisted and manipulated and physically controlled by WICKED. People who would torture a kill a whole generation just to buy themselves more time. If they really cared about saving humanity, they would try to protect the immune generation, not treat them like cattle. It was bullshit, and Gally would never get through being angry and tired. 

“They get to grieve.” Gally answered, having nothing better to say. 

The next time they talked seriously, it was Thomas who initiated it. 

“What does yours say? I never asked.” He had sat down beside Gally in the sand, evidently having seen him rubbing at that god forsaken neck tattoo they had forced on them all. Gally had no idea why they were talking now. But hey. Maybe that was the way of the new world. Maybe they were friends here. 

“Subject A6. The Antagonist.” 

Thomas laughed, and Gally laughed along with him. What else could he do? It was ridiculous. So true, so obvious. He didn’t even know why he had his, considering how easily he’d been tossed aside by WICKED when no longer useful. 

“Your only job was to piss us all off.” Thomas laughed, and maybe it was irrational, but Gally laughed right along with him.

“Oh yeah. Stung just before you turned up. My only job was to hate you and…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “We were all just props, aye? So what’s yours? Uh, Chosen One? WICKED’s favourite prodigal son?”

Thomas grinned, and though it was sarcastic and bitter, it seemed genuine. Sort of. “A2. To be killed by Group B.” 

Gally’s brows shot up in surprise. “Well, shuck, Greenie, guess you and I had somethin’ in common after all. We were both just disposable shanks. Till you weren’t anymore.”

They both laughed again. It was still bitter, still sarcastic, and yet, neither of them stopped. Of all the stupid things to laugh about. What else did they have really?

After the laughing died, they sat in companionable silence for a minute. Thomas spoke again. “Newt was the Glue. A5.” 

“Figures he was more important than me.” He tried for a joke, but it fell flat, and they were both silent for a minute.

“They knew.” Gally watched Thomas, waiting for him to elaborate. “They knew we needed him. They knew we needed him and they knew we were going to lose him.” 

He just nodded, because what the hell else could he say? Thomas was right. It was all cruel, all a manipulation. An acknowledgement that Newt held them together from a group fully aware that Newt would succumb and die… it was pure cruelty. Pure manipulation. 

“Teresa knew all along, y’know.” Gally glanced up again, an anger burning steadier inside his chest when he heard Thomas’ words. “She never actually lost her memories. She just pretended to. She knew all along.”

There was a long silence. “‘M’I allowed to say I hate her?”

“Yeah.” Thomas said quietly, “I do too. I just… love her too. That’s the worst part.”

Gally didn’t react, because he knew Thomas had lost a shitload and he figured it wasn’t his right, but he could not fathom how Thomas could possibly think of her and all she’d done without receding into pure anger. All he felt for her was hate and resentment, regardless of what small food she did. 

“Right.” He nodded slowly. 

“I’d do anything to get him back.” It was a sharp change of pace, but Gally knew Thomas was scattered. Who knew if he’d even seriously thought for years. Or if he’d just spend his entire life running nonstop and trying to stay alive? “He said some shit to me. Before…”

“Some shit…?”

“Yeah. He, uh, said he hated me. That it was all my fault. Called me a coward and a fake hero and… some other stuff.” He cleared his throat, and Gally noted that it sounded painful. How much time did he spend crying? “Begged me to… kill him.”

Gally would never, ever admit it out loud, but his heart really broke for both of them. For Newt, suffering through all that he did only to find out he wasn’t even immune, having to lose himself while his friends fought for a future. For Thomas, desperately trying to do the right thing, forced to kill the person he loved, forced to take all that weight and responsibility of being  _ The Cure _ . Gally sure as shuck didn’t envy him.

“Y’know he wasn’t himself.” Gally managed, but it sounded weak. He was no good at comfort. He was meant to be Thomas’ bodyguard, not his sounding board. He didn’t mind, but he had no fucking clue how he was meant to do it. “He was probably desperately trying to keep from hurting you.”

Thomas dropped his head into his hands, and after a second, was sobbing quietly into his hands. That was the world now, he supposed. One second laughing, the next crying. He considered leaving, but figured Thomas wouldn’t want to be left alone for everyone to crowd him and coo at him. He didn’t need that. 

“It was  _ my blood _ , Gally. I was the fucking  _ cure _ and the only person in the world that I  _ needed  _ to save is… is fucking dead. Because of me. How many people in the world lost their Newt’s because I failed? How did I walk beside him for years with no idea that it was… that I could… I  _ failed  _ him.”

It was weird and he was sure uncomfortable for them both, but Gally sort of half heartedly draped an arm around Thomas, hoping to offer some reassurance. He had no good words, but he could be there and he could listen.

He did. Thomas kept on for another few hours, and Gally mostly just listened. 

They still didn’t have much to say to each other, they weren’t best friends and likely never would be anything close to it. But they were some sort of friends, and Gally figured that was the most he had to offer in honour of Newt and who he was.

After a few more minutes, Thomas started talking again, and Gally wasn’t sure when he became a sounding board, but if that was what Thomas needed, that was what he would be. However weird it was. He figured if Thomas wanted to talk, it would be to Minho or Brenda or Frypan or really anyone else, but maybe Gally just being quietly around had made him a safer choice. Gally had been so loud and out there once, but things had long since changed, and he’d long since realised how little any of them really knew.

“He left me a note, y’know?” He phrased it like a question, but Gally supposed he just wanted to talk about it. 

Gally just waited. He didn’t want to push Thomas to say more, and frankly, he didn’t have a right to ask. He was trying to make up scorched earth, not burn more. He would never stop owing. 

“Said he would’ve followed me anywhere.” Thomas added. He had a sort of forced casualness to his tone, and Gally suspected he was trying hard not to get upset. Though whether it was angry upset or sad upset, he really couldn’t tell. “He trusted me. To be the… the leader or the hero or whatever. It wasn’t enough.” 

“You’re just a kid, Thomas.” Gally said quietly, glancing up at him. He rarely used his first name if he could avoid it, it still felt too familiar for whatever tentative friendship (if it could be called that) this was. “You weren’t supposed to save the world. We were never meant to be heroes. We were just genetic anomalies they thought they could exploit. This isn’t on you. It never was.”

“Maybe it shouldn’t have been, but it was. It is.” He frowned, running his hand over his face, “Even now, everyone still looks to me. I can see it. People waiting for me to… I don’t know, fix something. Perk up and save the world or whatever, and…”

“And you’re a kid who lost his best friend a few weeks ago.” Gally repeated. “You don’t owe them shit. That’s why I stop them hounding you.”

“You’re a nicer person than I thought you were.”

Gally snorted, “No, I’m not. Don’t do that.”

“No, yeah, you are though.” Thomas said quietly, glancing up at him. “I understand why you didn’t trust me before. And I…” He took a deep breath, like he was steeling himself, and Gally was already cringing in advance for what he knew was coming. “I know it wasn’t you that killed Chuck. That you were being controlled.”

Gally winced, and shook his head. “I…” He was ready to argue, but Thomas was being kind despite all the grief and anger (which he was more than entitled to), so Gally simply shrugged. “I guess it makes sense I was more of a dick back then. I’d been stung before you got back. I was being manipulated into seeing you as the enemy.” 

“You’re not though.” Thomas said slowly, maybe more to himself than to Gally.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gally and Brenda go back into the remains of the Last City looking for supplies. They both see something that rattles them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad people seemed to enjoy the first chapter! I was initially planning for this to only be 2 or 3 chapters, but I'm thinking I might end up extending it into a full story, maybe more like 10 chapters! Playing it by ear currently! I also have a tumblr @songbvrd so feel free to come yell at me there or suggest other fic ideas if you want to!
> 
> As always, please feel free to leave any/all feedback and thanks for reading!

“Why?” 

“What do you mean why?” Gally glanced over his shoulder briefly, unsurprised to see Thomas sitting on the hammock Gally slept in. Ever since their conversation on the beach, it’d been something more like a friendship. Thomas talked to him more, saved him seats, actually called him over if he needed help or a buffer. It was weird, and a little confronting, but Gally wasn’t altogether upset by it. 

“I mean, why? Like, of all the people that could go, why you?”

“Aw, shuck, you worried about me now, Greenie?”

Thomas rolled his eyes, and Gally thought he was probably reconsidering them being friends at all. “Frankly, yes. I’m a little sick of watching my friends die.”

“Low blow.” Gally answered immediately, “And I’m not going to die, man. I’m going back on a supply run. There’s still a whole city out there, and not a lot of sane and standing people to defend it. Besides, I know the city better than almost anyone in the Safe Haven and I’m immune. I’m an obvious choice. Plus, no one would care that much if I did get got.”

Thomas just glared at him, as if refusing to repeat that  _ he  _ was worried, which frankly, Gally was counting on. At least their mutual stubbornness was good for something. 

“You know cranks can still kill you, right? Getting infected isn’t the only version of that scenario. I’ve seen them use weapons and—“

“I know, Greenie.” He said flatly, “I’m not stupid. You were fine with me walking into it all last time.”

“We were trying to save Minho!”

“And now we need supplies.” Gally sighed. Thomas was stubborn, and apparently was mirroring what he was doing. The crippling irony that Thomas was probably trying to befriend him out of loyalty to Newt when Gally was trying to protect him for the same purpose was hard to ignore. 

“How long are you gonna be gone?”

“Jeez, Greenie, did you cling to Newt this much?”

“I didn’t have to, he wasn’t stupid.” Thomas snapped back instinctively. 

“Few days, tops. It’s fine, alright? You just… enjoy your freedom or whatever. I’m sure you’ll get hit on a ton while I’m gone, Chosen One.”

Thomas groaned, “Exactly, that’s why you shouldn’t leave. Is this really what Newt would want? For you to abandon me to get followed around by a bunch of random shanks who think I’ve got special blood?”

“You can’t evoke his memory like that, we don’t know what he’d want. Maybe he was trying to unload you into something other poor girl you could be clingy and annoying with.” 

Thomas sighed, “You’re really going? For supplies? What is even out there that hadn’t been ravaged already?”

“Could be any number of useful things out there, shank. Wouldn’t you like a bed instead of a hammock? I would. Or medicine.”

Thomas let out a deep, annoyed sigh. “Be safe, okay? Because if you go and get yourself killed out there, I’ll resuscitate you and then kill you again myself.”

*

“Copy that.” Gally said casually, leaning back in his seat. 

“You’re on Medicine, Gally, you got that? Check the remnants of the WICKED building. Everything had probably been crushed and looted, but you never know. Then look for anything else. Clinics, high schools, vets offices, pharmacies. Anything that might still have something, yeah?”

“Yep.” He nodded again, barely listening. He’d been told a hundred times, and besides, their little weird squad weren’t going in alone. They had been paired with people, and while Gally didn’t particularly want to spend extended time with anyone else, he understood why they were doing it. Having someone to cover your back was important. They each had certain signals to call for help and orders of when to get back. Gally thought it was still risky, but maybe they were willing to risk some for the chance to help others.

The notion of helping other immunes was always on the table, but that part wasn’t Gally’s responsibility, and frankly, he didn’t want to be a leader anymore, so that was all fine with him. 

By the time they were let off, Gally walked in near silence by the side of Brenda. All the Glade kids had been given permission to sit this out, they’d all lost so much so recently and most were still recovering mentally and physically. Gally was too, but it was easier for him to do than to sit around thinking about it all. Minho and Frypan and Thomas needed time. Gally needed a purpose. 

Brenda and he didn’t have too much in common anyway, though he liked her attitude. She was fine, ballsy, he just didn’t have a lot good to say to anyone anymore. Mostly he kept to himself, stayed closed off. She was clearly affected too, but seemed better than most. She had Jorge, Gally supposed, so she was luckier than most of them. 

“You reckon there’s anything worth finding out here?” She asked, and Gally looked around thoughtfully. 

“Probably not.”

“Why are you here then?” She asked it so casually, and Gally half smiled. Right. She had been building to that question, taking away Gally’s ability to say he was hoping for medicine or the like. It was smart, he supposed, like cutting around the bullshit.

“Somethin’ to do.” Gally answered, somewhat challengingly, looking over at her. “Why are _you_ here? Can’t believe you’d want to come back into the Scorch for no reason.”

Brenda laughed, as though he had said something she found mildly amusing. It felt sort of condescending, and Gally just smiled at her. Condescending or not, he respected her attitude. She rarely acted like things got to her, and though he was sure it wasn’t true, he could understand trying to be tough in a world like theirs. Even in the safety of Safe Haven, nothing ever actually felt real. Even in safety, they never felt safe. He was reluctant to speak for anyone about anything, but that he was sure of. He could see it in the way people held themselves. In the way they talked. They were relieved, and they certainly wanted to be happy, but no one was entirely sure how long it was going to last. 

“Wish I had a good answer, honestly.” She glanced over her shoulders, like checking that no one was around, as though she might be worried that someone would overhear her and kick her out of the Safe Haven for suggesting anything bad. “Truth is, I get a bit claustrophobic there. Don’t know why. I think it’s just… still a lot.”

Gally nodded. That alone made total sense to him, since he got the same way. It was all still… a lot, if he was honest. And while he was grateful, some small part of him was a little relieved to be away from all of that. Even if only for a few days. He figured Thomas could handle his own back for a few days. And maybe Gally would even find something useful. Most likely not, considering the state of the city when last he saw it, but a reconnaissance mission could also be useful. Maybe.

“WICKED building?” She asked, and Gally nodded. He had been planning to go in that general direction anyway. They weren’t too far from it, and while there were other notable places they needed to check, some part of Gally felt as though he needed to go there. As if he needed to see it crumbled and abandoned, needed to know for sure that it was really gone. That  _ they  _ were really gone. Some part of him knew he would always be waiting to wake back up in a maze or a stirrup, waiting for this to all be another trial. The Haven Trials. 

He shivered, despite the heat, and Brenda took notice, looking him over questioningly. “Nothin’.” He said finally, “Just thought about all the shit that went down there.” She nodded then, and as they made their way closer to the wreckage, to the lack of anything resembling the one great WICKED building, he felt a weird sense of satisfaction. A weird sense to destroy it as completely as the rest of the Scorch had been destroyed. The  _ Last City.  _ They ought to have known anything that came close to Thomas, Minho and Newt was bound to be burned to the ground. No more cities. Only beachside paradises that could never truly be trusted.

Gally didn’t even think about it, the instinct to go back to that same spot, outside the train station. The instinct to go and look.

“You know they already looked, right? They couldn’t find it.” Brenda was too perceptive, Gally realised, and it was making him uncomfortable. Of course she knew what he was doing, but Gally couldn’t help it. It had been weeks, and anything he found now wouldn’t be worth finding. But still, some part of him just felt like… if anyone deserved to make it there, to be buried there…

“I know.” He sighed, “Him, not it.”

“He’s dead. It’s just a body now.” Gally glanced up. It was harsh, and ironically, something he might’ve said once. Now, after everything, he just understood more. It wasn’t that they hadn’t known death in the Glade. It’s that they had been young, sheltered and manipulated, and now they knew the full extent of the cruelty and loss in the real world, and in the fake one they were stuck in. “Never took you for the sentimental type.”

Gally eyed her for a moment, unsure what to do with the comment. It felt sort of like an insult. Or a challenge, maybe. He felt like this conversation was loaded with trap doors, though he couldn’t figure out what was to be gained by her grilling him about this stuff. He knew she liked Thomas-- maybe she was trying to figure out why Gally had been around him lately. After all, she was one of the girls Gally had had to shoo off at a point. He liked her fine, and he knew that she and Thomas were close, but he didn’t need anyone wanting anything from him at that point, and he had thanked Gally for it after.

“You don’t really know me.” He finally answered with a shrug. “We barely met in all this, almost never talked one on one.”

“Uh huh.” She agreed, “I know Thomas nearly killed you though. Back in the Scorch.”

He snorted, “ _ Observant _ .” He snarked. “Can’t really know what it’s like to be in the maze till you’re in there.” He commented vaguely, throwing a glance in her direction, but not bothering to stop his ill-advised half-search for Newt’s body. 

“Okay, so tell me.” She said finally. “Tell me what it was like in there for you.”

Gally looked around. It had been quiet since they’d left their transportation. Quiet and dead. Everything was overrun and burned and destroyed, just like the Scorch itself. He supposed either things had died out or moved along. There would be cranks somewhere, undoubtedly, but he’d noted the tendency to see them more at night regardless. At least anyone seriously past the Gone. They had time to walk and talk, especially given they had no specific orders for anything for hours. But Gally didn’t know what Brenda already knew, and he suspected she wouldn’t tell him if she asked. 

“That’s a big question.” He mused, “It was like being stuck alone in a giant fake Glade with fifty other boys and being expected to sort out rules and lives and leadership and deal with constant death and lost and new kids and loneliness, then all of a sudden, the world’s upside down and you don’t know shit about shit.”

She half smiled. “And your part in that?”

He shrugged, “My job was to antagonise them. Literally. I had no choice in any of it.” Not that he owed her any explanation. “I was one of the leaders. A keeper of the builders. It was responsibility and stress. Watching people get hurt or exhausted or disheartened. The rules were all we had for  _ years _ . Then Thomas shows up, and I  _ remembered.  _ I remembered him working for WICKED. I remembered that he was one of them. That he betrayed us, put us in there. And then he starts messing everything up and not following all the rules and…” Gally shook his head, “I was trying to keep ‘em all safe. I cared. Really, properly cared about all of ‘em. And I thought following Thomas would get ‘em all killed. I thought Thomas was putting us all at risk. For what it’s worth, there were fifty of us before and only four now, so I wasn’t entirely wrong. I was just wrong about whose fault it all was. But I guess I was… supposed to believe that.” His tone was flat. 

“And now? You’re… what, friends? His self appointed security team?”

Gally shrugged noncommittally. He could comment on his own thoughts, but he wouldn’t presume to know what Thomas thought about it all. That was up to him. 

“What’s it to you anyway, Brenda? What’s with the twenty questions?” He asked, a little more brashly than was probably strictly necessary. 

She shrugged, “A lot of stuff I don’t know.” She admitted, “I know you all, but we had really different experiences. I want to understand you.”

It felt genuine, but Gally didn’t delude himself into thinking he really knew anyone well enough to trust their motives, save for maybe the three from the Glade. And even then, he knew Thomas far less well than he’d known Minho, Newt and Frypan. But Brenda, Vince and Jorge? Sonya, Aris and Harriet? He liked them, but they were still as good as strangers to him. Strangers who had relied on each other to survive, but strangers nonetheless. It was entirely possible Brenda was just genuinely trying to get to know him, but Gally wasn’t good at giving people the benefit of the doubt.

“Friends is a weird term for any of this.” Gally answered with a sigh, referring back to her earlier question. “I don’t know if I’m friends with anyone. I don’t know if any of them would consider me a friend. But they’re the closest thing to a family I’m ever going to have. And some of them I’ve known for literally as long as I can remember. Being in the maze was… we had to have our own rules. Our own society. We knew nothing about our lives or the world at large, nothing about how we got there. All we knew was that we were in danger, and if we didn’t keep things calm and steady, people got killed. Minho, Newt, Frypan and I, we were all in leadership positions when Thomas and Teresa turned up. We’d seen a lot of people die. Had no choice but to…” He shook his head. “We had to make a lot of shitty decisions. Do a lot of things none of us wanted to do. Obviously I made my own mistakes.” He paused, “WICKED had a way of doing that to us.”

“And now you feel guilty?” She asked.

He shrugged, “Yeah. Don’t you? I think that just comes with a heartbeat now.” It was the truth, even if it was a slightly watered down version of the truth. The truth, the whole truth, was that Gally remembered with horrible, startling clarity what he’d done to Chuck. And, actually, for as harsh as Gally knew he could be, he had loved Chuck. He had never wanted to hurt him. He’d never wanted to hurt anyone but Thomas, and even that was just another of WICKED’s manipulations forced onto him. Even that was part of some game. The truth was that Gally couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Chuck choking on his own blood, couldn’t sleep without seeing it all over again. The truth was that whether it was  _ really  _ his fault or not, Gally would never stop hating himself for what he’d done. And he’d never stop blaming himself for not being able to save the others. 

“I feel guilty that I got the cure and he didn’t.” She said softly.

People rarely ever said Newt’s name anymore. He’d heard Thomas say it at least twice, but only to him, when he was emotional and no one else was around. He’d said it himself once. To Thomas in the hope of diffusing the mood about him leaving a little. But he hadn’t heard Minho say his name. Nor Fry. Nor Brenda. It seemed like everyone was afraid to. Like it was invoking something none of them had any right to invoke. Weirdly, Gally wondered if everyone was waiting for Thomas to say it first. Minho knew Newt for longer, probably knew him better, but Gally got the sense that Minho saw what he did. 

Minho was always cleverer than people gave him credit for.

“I feel guilty I didn’t force him to stay and wait for the serum when we were in the WICKED building.” Gally added, just for good measure. 

“I feel guilty for being glad that she’s dead.”

Gally glanced up at her, and after a moment of silent acknowledgement, they both laughed. It was probably wrong to do so. They probably shouldn’t have. And while Teresa might’ve been something to the others, she wasn’t anything to Gally. Just someone who had put them into that Hellscape. Someone who had betrayed them, gotten Minho tortured, gotten the doctor killed. She had caused so much damage with her own bullshit hero complex. And while he knew she came around in the end, Gally didn’t much care. When push came to shove, everyone else had defended each other. She had defended WICKED. 

“Good to know we’ve got somethin’ in common,” Gally said with a little smile. 

“I mean, I’m sorry for how it affected other people. Thomas. But I’m not sorry that it happened.” Brenda clarified, and Gally nodded. Were they wrong for feeling that way? “I had a brother in the maze. George.” She clarified. “He never came back out. But I wasn’t immune and I guess he was already their test subject.” 

Gally swallowed, “We had a George in our maze.” He admitted.

She glanced up. “Did you know him?”

Gally just nodded slowly, “Yeah. He was a good guy. I’m sorry.” She didn’t ask how he died, and Gally didn’t offer it. It didn’t help anyone any, and he already had enough death to relive. 

“I like you too.” She said quietly. Gally looked up, confused. She elaborated, “Before we went into the Last City. You said you liked me. I like you too.” It was a platonic, and sort of sarcastic tone, but it only made Gally laugh.

“Well, there’s nothing like mutual hatred and guilt to bond people.” He said casually, giving up on the search relatively quickly. He had known going into it that he wasn’t going to find Newt’s body. It had been a halfhearted attempt, and one he knew was pointless. But it felt like the right thing to do, and so Gally had done it. Regardless of how vulnerable it made him feel. How dangerously close it came to making him admit he was handling everything as badly as the others were.

For hours, the two just talked. They weren’t due to return to the berg until later in the evening anyway, and neither of the two of them was likely to chicken out of anything. He supposed they both felt as though they had to pay their keep. He wound up finding out more about her and Jorge. About the community (or maybe empire was a better term) they had built out in the Scorch. About her getting bitten, and how she’d come to be cured by Thomas’ blood. 

Gally wound up telling her more about the maze. About the different positions and how Gally had come to be the Keeper of the builders. He told her about Chuck, and about how he hadn’t been in control of his body. He told her about how he came to be with the Right Arm. As weird as it was, they did actually end up being weirdly companionable. They got along easily, laughed often at things that absolutely weren’t funny, and mostly just wandered around. They found very little, a bottle of pills here or there, some bandaids. Nothing overall useful. 

They had only just finished raiding what was left of a clinic when Gally saw something in the distance. A flash of movement. He stilled, resting a hand on Brenda’s shoulder to silently tell her to do the same. To stop moving, to go quiet. She did, and stared off in the same direction Gally looked. It was quiet now, the movement gone, but Gally was certain he’d seen it. Things were mostly deserted out here these days, so movement was borderline troubling. At best, they might find someone useful. At worst, they might have to cut down a crank. But they needed to be aware of what they might be up against.

After a few moments, Gally began walking slowly, quietly towards the source of the movement. He could hear his boots crunching against shattered glass on the floor, and ash that could have belonged to building, fire or flesh. Brenda followed after him, silent and unquestioning, as if acknowledging the need to have each others’ back. She had survived long enough in the Scorch, as he had, to understand how vulnerable things were. How attentive you had to be. 

It was a few moments of silent observation before he spotted the next spark of movement. He got a little bit more this time. A person. Tall and quick. A flash of blonde. The immediate feeling of recognition that coursed through him was distressing, and he wondered for a split second if he had lost his mind. If maybe he secretly wasn’t immune after all.

He glanced back at Brenda and found that her brows were furrowed in confusion. Suspicion.

“Did that look like…?” He whispered, and she simply nodded in response. Together, and with no hesitation or discussion, the two took off running in the direction the person disappeared. He was sure they both knew they were mistaken, that there was no possible way… and yet, nobody had found his body. Hopeless and stupid, and yet, an undeniable moment of recognition that  _ both of them  _ had felt. 

They ran for a few minutes before they accepted the fact that maybe they were mistaken. There were no more signs of movements, and certainly no new signs of  _ him.  _ That seemed damning. So by the time it started to get dark, the two had to turn tail and head back towards the berg for the evening. 

They had barely spoken in the hours of silent running since they had seen the flash of familiarity, so when Brenda finally did speak again, Gally jumped. 

“We saw his body.” She said quietly, “We-- we saw the knife in his chest. Thomas killed him. He’s gone. He was gone.”

“I know.” Gally said softly, frowning at the ground for a moment. “I know. We both saw it.”

“I’m sure there are other… tall blondes in the Scorch.” Brenda attempted, but it sounded weak. Like she wasn’t sure either. And how could she be? What they had seen was… so weird. So out of pocket. How could they ever ensure what they saw? They couldn’t tell anyone. People would think they were insane, and if they really were wrong, they were giving people false hope.

“We shouldn’t tell anyone.” Gally said after a moment.

Brenda glanced up at him, seemingly surprised. “That we think we saw him? Why wouldn’t we tell them?” She asked as he gave her boost up onto a particularly high rubble step they were trying to climb over on their way back.

Gally thought a lot about how to answer. In the process of thinking about how to answer, he wound up back inside the Glade. Back when things were simple. If things had  _ ever  _ been simple for them. He thought about Minho and Newt. He thought about Frypan and Newt. About Thomas and Newt. He had no good answer, except to remember how much they’d all lost. It wasn’t hard to remember in vivid detail as they walked through the destruction of the city, knowing full well nearly everyone who lived there was probably dead or as good as. They had lost too much. Too much for Gally to put more onto them. To give them false hope over a flash of blind and a moment of overwhelming, sickening familiarity.

“Because if we’re wrong, we’re only going to break their hearts.” He said finally. 

“Who knew you were secretly soft?”

“Shut up, ya shank.” He shook his head, “Besides, if it was him, and he did survive. He’s probably long past the Gone. And no one else needs to see that. If… if he is, I’ll put an end to it and then we’ll… take his body back.” 

Brenda was looking at him like she was thinking, like she was evaluating him, and he rolled his eyes under the weight. 

“Stop looking at me.” He grunted, shaking his head.

“I’ll never understand your lingo.” She told him finally, and Gally sort of smiled at that. Good. It was their thing anyway. Whatever was left of them, at least. 

“Okay.” Brenda said slowly, and Gally raised his brows, confused as to what she was talking about now. “We won’t tell anyone.” She further clarified, eyes locked on his, “But we’re going to tear this place apart looking tomorrow.”

He raised his brows at her, “Did you even really know him?”

“Yeah, I did.” Brenda answered instantly, “I spent six months with him planning to get Minho and the others back from WICKED. And past that, I got the cure. He didn’t. ‘S’wrong.” She frowned straight ahead, and they were nearing the berg now, so those conversations were going to have to cease soon, to be replaced by something more benign and less worrying. Something that wouldn’t have everyone thinking they’d lost their collective minds. 

When they climbed in, the two both fell generally silent. They ate their dinner in silence, settled into their sleeping places in silence, and generally barely spoke to anyone else on their little team. Others talked, chatted, laughed, recounted what they’d found and what it reminded them of. Some people reminisced about a world before the Flare, something Gally couldn’t remember to talk about. Besides, he was busy thinking.

He was busy mulling it over again and again. Could Newt be alive? Was it even possible? Brenda was silent too, and he wondered idly whether she was considering the same thing. They’d both seen it. Newt flat on the ground, eyes still open, breathing stuttering to a stop, knife propped out of his chest. Dead. He was  _ dead.  _ They were all sure. But had any of them… had any of them taken his pulse? Had they had the time to double check? They’d all been running for their lives against the influx of cranks, against the WICKED staff in shambles. They were all half out of their minds from grief and panic and adrenaline and anger and exhaustion. Had anyone checked?

Gally genuinely couldn’t recall. All he knew was, after they’d had to run, any time they had gone back to look, there was no body.

None of them had ever seen a body.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gally and Brenda find what they're looking for. Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am super duper enjoying this story, and really glad others seem to be enjoying it too! It's definitely going to be longer, and we're also going to be seeing some different perspectives soon! Thank you guys so much for reading!
> 
> As always, please feel free to leave me any/all feedback, and feel free to yell at me over on my tumblr @songbvrd :)

Gally dreamt of black veins, griever stings and high, looming walls. He dreamt of blood and exhaustion and anger. When he woke, with a start, the sun was rising and Gally was up and out of the berg as quickly as he could be, a tired Brenda in tow. 

“Where do we start looking?” Brenda asked, once there was some distance between them and the others. Gally’s eyes trained over her for a second, before fixing on the emptiness and destruction that was the Last City. It looked, in many ways, exactly like Scorch. Ash and dust and ruins of what was once a fully formed society. There were no people in pretentious suits and barely there masks pretending the world hadn’t ended now. 

Now, Brenda and Gally walked alone, appropriately feral in the environment. They didn’t stand out any, and they both had  _ ‘survivor’  _ written all over them, Gally knew that for sure. The Safe Haven might’ve softened them a little, but not enough. Gally suspected of almost anyone, he and Brenda would both be two of the last to trust this enough to stop reeking of survivor.

“Don’t know.” Gally admitted, “I guess anything that looks like it could be stable enough for someone to use it as a residence. Somewhere to hide out.”

Brenda nodded, and the two went on walking somewhat aimlessly. Their actual mission, finding any medicine, had been all but forgotten, the two of them both clearly rattled about what they  _ thought  _ they had seen. That day had been unignorably, unchangingly one of the worst days of all of their lives. He was sure of that. Between the fall of WICKED, the escape route, and all the loss, there was almost too much to even process. Even if Brenda didn’t know them all the way they knew each other, she knew them enough. He’d been able to see it on her face.

Gally had held it together most of any of the Glade members, but Gally had also never known how to handle his own feelings.

If he was going to cry, he could only do it in the privacy of his own little hut. Even if he wanted to cry in front of people, even when he’d tried, it just wouldn’t happen. Like a defence mechanism. Some part of his psyche telling him that no matter how bad it got, it wasn’t bad enough to justify being so vulnerable. Regardless, he was sure none of them thought it affected him the way it did them. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he had no right to be upset at all, after everything.

But he was. And when he was alone, when he did have a moment of privacy, he would sometimes feel so overwhelmed he thought he’d never stop drowning, never get his head above water.

He’d feel like he was still stuck with WICKED. Like he’d never get free of WICKED. He’d wonder if anything he’d ever said or thought had ever been his own. He’d wonder if he ever would belong to himself, or if he would always be property of WICKED, no matter how long he lived. He’d wonder sometimes whether Newt died hating him. He’d wonder whether Minho and Fry would ever forgive him. He’d wonder why people got to decide that their lives were someone else’s to be taken and exploited. Wonder how they were allowed to treat living human beings as property. 

And his chest would constrict, and he would focus on regaining his breathing again until he’d eventually fall asleep. By the time he woke, he had jobs to do again, and his psyche had gone back to its protected, closed off state. 

They walked in silence for nearly two hours, finding multiple empty hidey-holes, no sign of Newt or anyone else still breathing. They couldn’t even find anything that seemed recently used.

So when, mid-morning, they heard a crash coming from off in the distance, they both instinctively took off running. The house they found was barely standing. It seemed out of place, almost boutique amongst the bigger and more thoroughly destroyed scenery of the city. The place was closed up, but nothing was really locked in the apocalypse, and it wasn’t hard for Gally to cave what was left of the door in and get into the place. 

Once inside, they both went slower. More careful. They had knives, but nothing more  _ automatic _ , so if someone else had other weapons, they were at risk. 

They had walked nearly to the back of the house, careful to peer into each room, before he heard a click behind him. Spinning, stepping in front of Brenda instinctively, Gally raised his hands. He had no Launcher to hold back, so if that was on him, brandishing a knife was fairly useless. 

But when he turned, any thoughts of fighting immediately drained out of his mind. Any thoughts at all drained out of his mind. His entire head seemed to be shouting and on fire, only thinking one thought. One word. 

_ Newt.  _

“You’re dead.” Gally said stupidly, looking at Newt like he was expecting the world to collapse at any moment. Surely he was crazy. Surely he was secretly not immune either, or WICKED had never let go of him, that none of this was real, just something he was seeing. Maybe he was just regularly losing his mind without the Flare, consumed by guilt and grief and concern.

He took in Newt’s appearance. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes as when Gally last saw him. He wore brown cargo ones, more like the kind he’d worn in the Glade, and a long sleeved white top. He had on those same combat boots he always seemed to be wearing, and a bag slung across his body. The whole getup was weirdly reminiscent of the Maze, even though it was clearly not of their making. It was different, but there was a hint of it. A shadow. Gally could see black veins on his neck, creeping their way closer to his brain, but his eyes were clear and familiar. He wasn’t past the Gone, in fact, he looked less ill than he had when last Gally saw him. Significantly. Thinner, probably, which definitely couldn’t be healthy. He had dark circles under his eyes and looked more drawn in the cheeks. But it was Newt. Alive. Breathing. Unmistakably. 

“Fairly certain I’m not, mate.” Newt’s tone was warning, confrontational, and he kept the Launcher on them both. Gally had no idea where he got it, but somehow he wanted to smile. Newt was such a survivor. Of course he’d somehow wind up with a weapon.

Brenda spoke up then, and Gally was glad, because his own brain had deserted him. “We watched you die. We watched… We saw…”

“You saw what?” Newt asked, brows raising. And hearing him talk, the same sarcastic cadence of his accented voice, was so surreal that Gally could’ve sworn it wasn’t really happening. That he was simply dreaming. Only Brenda, standing a step behind Gally, kept him grounded in the reality that this must be true. That it had to be. That it was happening. 

“We saw Thomas stab you.” Gally finally said, swallowing harder, “Where-- where have you been the past few weeks?”

Newt snorted. “WICKED.”

Gally and Brenda’s body languages both visibly changed, both of them standing straighter, more on guard, more paranoid. Gally let himself glance around, but only for a moment, only for a split second. 

“Woke up in some bloody white room, covered in tubes and shit. Got told how I wasn’t immune and had nearly died, but they’d gotten me in time. Spent about a month having just  _ great fun  _ with WICKED and all their devices to test brains and antibodies or whatever.” The darkness in his tone seemed  _ telling.  _ Torture, Gally realised. Just like Minho. “One day they had me all strung up in some thing and I was conscious and strong enough to knock the shank out. Weren’t that many of ‘em left, and they weren’t expecting me to have the strength to run. Got this and been runnin’ since.” He held up the Launcher, as if to explain further. 

Gally just stared at it. “And… and… you’re not a crank anymore. I mean y’are but…”

“Serum.” Newt said with an alarmingly casual shrug. “Got a few more weeks in me, I reckon. I’m gonna spend it trying to get rid of what’s left of WICKED though.”

Gally and Brenda exchanged a look, both of their eyes wide, disbelieving, paranoid. 

It was Gally who spoke up. “You gotta come back with us man. Everyone misses you. They’ll… they’ll lose their minds when they realise you’re not dead.”

Newt’s brows raised somewhat gingerly. “And why the bloody hell would I do that?”

“What do you mean?” Gally asked. “Because we can save you. We have the cure still and all your friends are there and… and we all miss you. Of course you have to come. You should’ve been with us all along.”

There was something unreadable in Newt’s eyes, and Gally found himself feeling like something was wrong here. Why would Newt ever turn down the chance to see everyone again? To be cured and safe and with Thomas and Minho and Fry and everyone else. Did he think this was a trick? WICKED’s doing, maybe?

Newt frowned. “I… I don’t even know you, why would I go anywhere with you?”

Gally thought he was going to throw up. Brenda put a hand on Gally’s shoulder, maybe in support, or in solidarity, or just out of shock. He didn’t know. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to react. He felt like his brain had dyed in the wool, like it wasn’t processing any of this information, from Newt being alive to him not knowing who any of them were.

“What?” Gally snapped, frustrated and overwhelmed, “Of course you know me, man, we were in the mazes together. And I know where Thomas and Minho and Frypan are, I can take you to ‘em. I can make sure you don’t have the Flare anymore. You can have more than a week left to live.”

“I don’t know any of those names.” Newt looked like he was getting testy, though Gally himself felt like he was losing his cool. He was gripping the Launcher tighter, and seemed to be shifting awkwardly on his feet. “I don’t know you. For all I know, you’re just WICKED or another crank. Why would I go anywhere with you?”

Gally raised his hands higher, further in surrender, “Newt.” His own voice sounded pleading, and it only escalated his panic higher. “Please, come on. You know who I am. We’ve known each other for years. We were both leaders in the Glade. You-- you said shank before.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Newt snapped, “The last thing I remember is waking up strapped to a bed in the WICKED labs.” He said flatly, “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

Gally felt like he couldn’t breathe. He felt like his brain had shut down, like he wasn’t taking in or processing any of the information he’d just received. How was he supposed to? Newt was alive, despite the knife in his chest, despite the disease, but he had no idea who they were. It wasn’t fair. It was so  _ incredibly  _ unfair that Gally almost felt like a child even thinking it. None of this had ever been fair. Them being taken. The manipulation. All the death and pain. Newt not being immune to begin with. None of it was fair. He tried to think back on all the time he’d known Newt, of anything he might be able to say to trigger a memory. But he knew what it was. He knew the answer. 

Newt had been Swiped. Again. 

“WICKED took your memories.” Gally said confidently. “But you know me. You knew all of us, before. Before they got you. Before they Swiped you.” He could feel the croak in his throat. The telltale dryness that came with emotion. But Gally knew he wouldn’t cry. He never cried in front of people-- physically couldn’t. He wondered how much of that was WICKED. How much of that was being a child tortured beyond self-recognition. Sometimes he wished he was more like the others. That he had reacted more the way they had. But Gally was the antagonist. His eyes widened, the thought shaking him awake. “The tattoo! The tattoo on the back of your neck. Property of WICKED?” 

Newt nodded, frowning. He had evidently seen it. Maybe noticed, maybe been told about it. Didn’t matter, really, as long as he knew what Gally was referencing.

“I have one too. You’re, um…” He tried hard to remember what Thomas had told him nearly a week before. “A5, right? The Glue?” 

Newt nodded, his dark eyes visibly processing, visibly paranoid. Gally hated it. He hated that look on him, because he’d never seen it pinned that way. They’d had a lot happen since when they were just friends back in the Glade, but Newt was still a friend Gally cared for, and it hurt to see him look so… lost and confused.

Newt didn’t shoot or get any angrier, so Gally pushed forward, taking a small step towards Newt. He looked worse than Gally thought, more exhausted and more malnourished. Despite being in the sun, he looked paler than Gally was used to. 

“Mine is A6. I’m the Antagonist. We were in the maze together. The people I’m talking about, our friends, they were there too. Minho— he’s A7. The Leader. Thomas—Thomas is A2. I don’t know Frypan’s, but I’m sure he has one.” He frowned, “I can prove it. I can show you mine.”

“And her?” Newt gestured the Launcher in Brenda’s direction, and Gally instinctively put an arm out to cover her more. 

“She doesn’t have one, she wasn’t in the maze with us. But she’s an ally, a friend. She helped us.” 

Newt eyed him, swallowing. He seemed in control, and Gally was sure if he didn’t know Newt so well, he wouldn’t be able to tell that anything was wrong at all. He wouldn’t be able to tell that Newt was freaking out. But he knew him, and he could tell. Newt was always a voice of reason. Calm even against panic. But he was also memoryless and infected. 

“Come here. Just you, leave her there.”

Gally kept his hands raised, nodding. “Okay.” He moved closer, slowly, trying not to spook him. “Okay.”

“Wait, Gally—“

“It’s fine.” He told Brenda slowly, “I know Newt, he’s not gonna shoot me.” He kept moving closer. “I’m just going to show him the tattoo. We can’t leave here without him.”

When he got close enough, he turned, slowly and cautiously, keeping his eyes on Newt as long as he could. He brushed his hair and the shirt aside, showing the black letters.

_ Property of WICKED.  _

_ Group A. _

_ Subject A6. The Antagonist.  _

“How do I know you’re not with WICKED?” Newt asked, after examining the ink on Gally’s skin. Gally turned, looking back up at him again. 

“WICKED took me when I was a little kid and took my memories and put me into that maze. They tried to use me as cannon fodder. They tortured me and the Right Arm, the group we’re with, they rescued me. They took me away from WICKED and I found the others again in the Scorch.” He explained. “You and me, we were friends once. We helped take down WICKED together. We thought it was over… We… never would’ve left you with them if we’d known you were still alive.”

Newt’s eyes were cold on him, his expression distrustful. “Nice story. I’m still not goin’ off with you though, mate.” He said casually, Launcher still in hand. “Go on your way.”

Gally shook his head, “But we can save you! We have the cure— You don’t have to die! Please. There are people there who’d do anything to see you again.” He was pleading, which wasn’t a good colour on him, but what else did he have? He couldn’t just leave Newt behind. He couldn’t. 

“Look, I don’t care about a cure. The only thing I care about is not getting caught and finding my sister.”

“Your sister?” Gally repeated, confused. “I didn’t know you had a sister. You never mentioned it. Did…?”

“WICKED showed me.” Newt’s voice was cold, “They showed me the file. Told me her name. They wanted to know why she was immune and I wasn’t.”

“What’s her name, Newt?” Brenda jumped in, evidently hoping they might know her. Newt jumped slightly, obviously having momentarily forgotten about Brenda’s presence at all, focused on Gally’s story and disproving it. 

Newt was cautious. Unsure. He seemed to be weighing his options up in his head. “Sonya.”

“I know her. We know her.” Gally said quickly. “Sonya’s with us, back at the Safe Haven. We can take you to her and we can fix you. You can get to know each other again. Just please, come back with us. If I’m lying, we won’t make you stay.”

Newt looked at Brenda, and she nodded enthusiastically, “We know her. She was in Group B. She was with the Right Hand. Has friends named Harriet and Aris from their maze.” She seemed like she was trying to spout information, trying to use what they knew to convince Newt.

Newt didn’t look convinced. 

“What do you have to lose, man?” He asked slowly. “We’re not WICKED. Neither of us.” He turned to Brenda then, “Show him your bite.” 

Brenda nodded once, pulling her pant leg up to show him. Newt eyed it.

“What’s that supposed to prove?” Gally had never heard Newt sound so cold and unaffected. He’d always been the best of them. 

“Why would someone from WICKED have a bite? We’ve— I’ve got the tattoo, she’s got the bite. Do we look like WICKED types? We’re both scarred and bruised and have no weapons that can combat yours. We’re clearly not WICKED.” 

He swallowed. “Where do you want me to go? Where  _ is  _ Sonya?”

“It’s called the Safe Haven. We came here in a berg we stole from WICKED when we destroyed the building. We’ve got others with us, others from the Right Arm, from the Haven. They all know you, you’ll see. Watch. They’ll know your name without prompting. They’ll know you. You worked with them for months.”

Newt nodded once. “Okay. We go back there, we see what they say. No contacting anyone, you can’t say anything till we see how they react.” 

They both nodded their agreement, and Newt let the Launcher fall a little, no longer pointed at either of them. 

It took a little while to get coordinated and walk together. Gally answered any questions Newt had, but truthfully, Newt wasn’t talking much. Every now and again, he’d ask something else. Were they free of WICKED? Yes. Was their cure permanent? Yes. Was there a place for him there if he did come? Yes. Would he and Sonya be safe to get to know each other? Yes.

Gally got the sense Newt didn’t really believe him, but that he was asking things to try to catch them out. That was good, Gally thought. Let him see they had nothing to hide. 

By the time they returned to the Berg, early, there was no one else there. 

“We’re meant to meet in an hour or so.” Gally explained. “People might return early, but we might be waiting a bit.”

“Why are you out here anyway, if you’re so safe?”

“Just looking for supplies.” Gally eyed Newt, as if he still couldn’t believe he was alive at all. His chest rose and fell, and Gally couldn’t tear his eyes away from the other boy. He looked so much older, so much more exhausted, so much sadder, so much more paranoid than he had looked in the maze. He wasn’t the confident, golden haired leader from the Glade. His hair was matted with blood (Gally wasn’t sure if it was his own or someone else’s) and he looked dead behind the eyes. It hurt Gally. And if it hurt Gally, he thought it might kill Minho and Thomas. Gally could picture his smile clearly, but he wasn’t sure if he would ever see it again at this point. The malnourished man in front of him didn’t look like he’d ever smiled before. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Newt finally said, irony colouring his tone. 

“Feel like I have, too.” Gally answered. He knew he had to stop staring, but he was overwhelmed. Entirely, completely overwhelmed. Brenda rested a hand on his shoulder, and his eyes finally broke away to glance at her, nodding a thank you.

They both knew what they knew. They were walking into fire here— bringing Newt back. As if it wasn’t overwhelming enough, the Swipe on top of that. He almost felt guilty. But he was positive that Minho and Thomas and the rest would rather have him memoryless and angry than not at all. Especially if they could save him. Gally was pretty sure Thomas would give up every drop of blood to save his friends, and especially Newt. 

By the time the others approached, Gally was only being kept awake by the need to keep an eye on Newt, to make sure he didn’t disappear into thin air. But they approached, and Newt stood, and true to their word, neither Gally nor Brenda said a word.

“Newt?” Vince asked, his eyes wide, his face paling, a shiver running over him. 

“I don’t understand.” Jorge, who had been at his side, piped up. “How— how are you alive?”

“Where did you find him?” Vince asked, looking between Brenda and Gally, who both looked  _ exhausted.  _ They were; absolutely wrecked. They’d done nothing but run through the ash and the rubble all morning, looking for him. And when they had found him, that had been a whole other emotional blow. 

“See?” Gally commented to Newt quietly, “They knew you. Just like we did.” He rose to his feet, turning to address Vince and Jorge. “We thought we saw him yesterday. But we weren’t sure, and we didn’t wanna tell unless we were sure. So we went looking today. He sort of found us, really. Backed us into a corner and… well, we tried to explain. But um…” He cleared his throat, “Newt was caught by WICKED. He’s been Swiped again.”

Both Vince and Jorge went from confused, to uncertain, to angry, to concerned within moments. They were clearly trying to make sense of it— and like Gally and Brenda, he was sure they wouldn’t believe it if they weren’t seeing it for themselves. 

“Serious? You don’t know me, Hermano?” Jorge asked, eyeing the younger boy, confused and disbelieving. 

Newt simply shrugged, seemingly unphased by the attention, thought Gally was sure he wasn’t letting on how much it bothered him. “Should I?”

More people trickled in, and some knew Newt, some didn’t. Everyone was shocked and confused by the turn of events, but by the time they were finally leaving, the air seemed tense and nervous. They had the cure. They knew, via Brenda, that the cure worked. But still… Newt was alive, but he wasn’t… Newt. 

“One of us should talk to Thomas and Minho when we get back.” Gally finally said. “Before they see. We should take him straight to a medjack, get that cure in as soon as possible.”

“Why?” Newt asked. He could’ve been questioning so many things, so Gally just made an assumption.

“They’re your best friends. They’re not going to handle seeing you like this well.” 

Newt didn’t answer, so Gally refocused on the others.

“You should do it.” Vince answered finally. “You’ve known ‘em longer, and it was your who found him.” 

“You all do know I’m also in the berg, yes?” Newt asked, sarcasm dripping from his tone.

“I liked you better before.” Vince told Newt, who shrugged.

“I don’t like you at all.” He answered, casual. He was defensive, obviously. Newt was out of his depth, with no real idea who they were or if he’d be safe. Annoying though it was, Newt could fully understand Newt’s brazen reactions. Besides, he had no right to judge how someone else handled stress. 

“I don’t know if I should be the one.” Gally answered finally. “My relationship with them is—“

“No, it should be you.” Brenda agreed. “But I can come with, if you want.”

Gally found he liked her more and more. They were quickly becoming something resembling friends. Gally nodded his agreement and thanks. He was sure both Minho and Thomas liked Brenda better. 

When the berg landed, Gally took a sharp breath, steeled himself and got ready for the conversation he knew he had to have. Newt was taken directly to the med tent, as discussed, and Brenda and Gally were left to find those they had settled on telling upfront. Thomas, Minho, Frypan and Sonya. 

Gally had no idea how he was going to break this to them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt arrives at the Safe Haven, his friends find out his fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you guys so so much for all of the positive feedback! I'm so glad people are enjoying this story, because I'm really, really enjoying writing it!
> 
> As always, please feel free to leave any/all feedback either here or on my tumblr @songbvrd.

He woke up with sweat on his forehead, though it wasn’t that hot outside. He could feel the cold breeze already, before he even got up, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t sweating because it was hot. He was sweating because he’d had a nightmare. 

The same nightmare.

Weeks passed, things changed, scars healed, and yet… the same nightmare. The same blown, inhuman eyes. The same harsh, pained screams. The same fear. The same pleading.

_ Now make amends! Kill me before I become one of those cannibal monsters! Kill me! I trusted you with the note! No one else. Now do it! _

_ Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery. _

_ Please, Tommy. Please. _

Thomas took sharp breaths in when he sat, trying to be calm enough not to be immediately overwhelmed by the day. Time kept moving, and people expected Thomas to get better.

Weeks had limped by him, the world moving even when Thomas’ had stopped, and yet, Thomas didn’t feel any better. He had no more motivation to continue to pretend than he had when he’d first gotten to the ‘Safe Haven’, only now, Gally was gone too.

He had hated Gally. Really, completely loathed the other Glader. But they had bigger fish to fry, and they weren’t each others’ enemies. They were just both victims of the same cruel bullshit. Besides, Gally had done the right thing by Thomas since they got here. Protected him when people got in his face. Stopped people from expecting too much of him, or trying to start something up with him. Gally’s weird and sometimes hostile presence had been disconcerting at first, but Thomas had gotten used to it, and now that Gally was gone, he missed it.

And not only because he was sort of afraid that he was going to get bombarded again now that Gally was gone. 

He fiddled with the necklace around his neck absentmindedly, unsure why he kept it as he did. It meant the world to him, the most valuable thing he had owned or would ever own, along with Chuck’s little clay doll. But it also felt… fake. It felt like it wasn’t real because despite Newt’s kindness in the note, despite the intimacy of the words, he felt nearly certain Newt had died hating him. How the  _ fuck  _ did he ever forgive himself for that?

Like always, Thomas forced himself up, dredged out into the common area, and ate. He didn’t want to, and he skipped meals regularly, but he had to find a way. He had to exist somehow or what was the fucking point of any of it?

Minho landed beside him with a thump, and Thomas was glad. Of anyone here’s company, he’d take Minho’s first. 

“How you doing, shank?” Minho asked, and he sounded like he was trying for casualness, but landed somewhere more in the neighbourhood of awkward and forced. 

“Can’t complain.” Thomas answered, reservedly. For two people who had been best friends as long as they had, neither seemed to know how to talk to the other about their feelings. Probably because neither of them had a clue how to process all that they’d seen and been through. Did you ever recover from something like that? Or did you just learn how to carry on broken? “You?”

“Shit.” Minho answered, somewhat surprising Thomas. He’d gotten used to platitudes and emotionless, detached answers with people. Minho’s answer didn’t feel like that. It felt genuine.

“Shit?” Thomas repeated, a ghost of a smile crossing his face.

“Yeah, absolute shit.” He half smiled, “My hammock fell last night. Just fully fell to the ground like a bag of potatoes, man. Bad omen. It’ll probably storm or some klunk like that.”

“You sound like an old man, Min. Next your knees’ll be telling you when it’s going to rain.” Thomas told him, his mood lifting somewhat. He didn’t forget. He never forget the third person who should’ve been there. But at least for a moment, he didn’t feel entirely alone. There was still Minho, and Minho and he were still best friends. Even if lately, it felt hard to be much of a friend to anyone. 

“I am an old man.” Minho said casually, rubbing his forearm as he ate, “I mean, hell, we both are looking around this camp. Old and scarred up. We’re like battle weary heroes or some shit around here.” The raven haired boy flashed a smile, and Thomas had no idea whether or not it was fake. This one was harder to tell.

“Ew.” Thomas answered instinctively. “Never wanted that.” He scoffed, glancing around. Minho was right though— Thomas could see people watching them. It made him want to run into the ocean and swim until he found somewhere where no one knew him or his stupid  _ special  _ blood. 

“Did anyone?” He asked casually, shaking his head. The answer was, naturally, no. But there was something about joking about it with Minho. It made him feel more like himself again, more normal. Because Minho understood, at least to some extent. They had been on that same path. The same maze, the same Scorch, the same suffering. Their paths had diverged at a point, but Minho still knew as well as Thomas how that pressure and suffering and fear felt.

“Janson and Paige.” He said with a sarcastic shrug, “They really thought they were heroes.”

Thomas made a face. He didn’t particularly want to hear those names out loud or in his head ever again. He did, of course, there was no running from trauma, but he tried not to think about them as much as he was able to ignore it. 

“Somethin’ real heroic about torturing and draining out a whole new generation just to prolong the lives of the rich.” Minho started again. Thomas fully agreed with him, but he couldn’t get any comments about it out. It seemed to hit him in the chest, and instead, he simply cleared his throat. 

“What are you gonna do today?” Minho asked. They had jobs, technically, but Thomas and Minho seemed to get cut a lot of slack on such things. He knew why. People still knew they were grieving. Struggling to recover. Gally went running off on missions and Thomas barely woke up.

“Probably sit on the beach.” He answered flatly, because he wasn’t needed today anyway, and frankly, he was trying to avoid most everyone (Minho excluded). 

“I’ll join ya.” Minho offered, and Thomas was surprised by how glad he was. 

“You filling in for Gally or something?” He asked, brows raised. Minho shrugged in response.

“Apparently. What’s with that anyway?”

Thomas snorted in response, shaking his head. “Not sure. I think he’s trying to like… make amends maybe. By stopping people bothering me. It’s actually pretty funny, shank has no shame about just telling someone to leave or pushing between me and them.” 

“Huh.” Minho let out a small laugh. “All this time and I still don’t really get him.” They both laughed then, and after a minute, they walked down towards the beach, sitting together in the sand. They hadn’t really just sat and talked for a while. Since Minho gave Thomas the letter, maybe. Not that either of them had known what it was or what it meant then. 

“This only further solidifies my theory that given enough time, everyone will grow to be obsessed with you.” Minho joked, and Thomas snorted at him.

“Is this your way of telling me you’re obsessed with me, slinthead?”

Minho actually grinned, and Thomas wasn’t sure when the last time he saw it was, but it made his own smile widen, made it feel more real. “Oh yeah, man. Didn’t you know already?” He teased, “I mean, you are our special favourite of WICKED.”

Thomas pretended to gag, but he was still smiling, and so was Minho, and for a split second, it felt like maybe they were learning to exist with their pain. It didn’t go away. It didn’t fade or lessen, but it felt like they were learning how to be with it. How to grow yourself and expand to make room for that pain. 

“I’m serious though, Brenda, Teresa, Newt…” Minho was trying to broach something, Thomas realised. Something he didn’t really want broached. It was fair. It’d been at least two months, maybe more, since they lost everything. Minho was his best friend, if they could talk to anyone about this, it  _ should  _ be each other. He just shook his head, but Minho pressed on. “I mean, I’m yet to find it, you’re still a Greenie shank to me, but they must’ve seen something in ya.” 

“Well… y’know, you can’t account for taste.” Thomas tried to joke, but it sounded weak on himself and he knew it. Once Minho had said the words, all he could think of was blonde hair and brown eyes and he knew he couldn’t ignore that memory. Even hearing Minho say his name made it all feel fresh again. They hadn’t really discussed it. Minho was obviously worried about Thomas, but Thomas didn’t know why. Of either of them, Minho had known him far longer. They had far more history. It should be Thomas checking up on him.

“I don’t know, I knew him for a long time and he had pretty good taste.” Minho prodded, and Thomas sighed.

“I’m fine, man.” He said finally, “I should be the one checking in to see you if you’re coping.”

Minho paused for a moment, thinking. “We can check in with each other. That’s what we should be doing. It’s what he would’ve wanted us to do.” 

He made a good point, and Thomas couldn’t really refute it. Newt was always the nurturer of their little group. He was the one who took care of everyone else. In his absence, he would expect Minho and Thomas to care for each other. He could practically hear Newt cussing them out about it, calling them both buggin’ idiots. It brought a smile to his face. 

“I’m okay, too.” Minho finally said, nudging his shoulder into Thomas’. “Except I’m not. I mean, I am, but…”

Thomas actually understood exactly what he meant. “It’s like a phantom limb.” He said finally, not even knowing where he got that point of reference from. Something from before the Swipe, probably. The shadow of a memory or an idiom he’d heard before that he couldn’t place the origin of now.

Minho looked up, and for a moment, he paused, then he nodded. “Yeah. There’s a missing piece.” He added, looking at the spot next to him on the beach, like he expected a third person to be there. “It was always us three, y’know?”

Thomas nodded. “Who will stop us from doing dumb shit all the time?” He asked, trying to joke again. “Between us, we are not smart enough to know when to shut up.”

Minho laughed, and somehow it sounded more emotional than he’d been expecting. “Yeah, exactly. I don’t know if either of us have the capacity to fill that role.” 

“We don’t.” Thomas agreed with a nod. After a moment, he took a deep breath, and let his head drop onto Minho’s shoulder. It was unusually vulnerable for him, and in truth, he sort of hated it, but he was glad to be near Minho again, glad to not have lost his best friend entirely along with everything else, and frankly, the whole conversation, surface level and joke-y as it was, had knocked all of the air out of him. He watched the waves in the distance, and tried to imagine what it must’ve been like before the Scorch. Before the Flare.

He had no memories of it, so it was all a hypothetical. A world where everything was calm and normal. Where peoples’ greatest concerns were their paychecks and traffic. Where people didn’t turn into raving cannibals and you didn’t lose everyone you’d ever loved day by day. You had actual time with people, and you could afford to be slow about things.

Still, he tried to imagine it. He tried to imagine parents and kids running through the surf. Couples, able to be together without being covered in blood or moments from death. He tried to imagine a world in which he was normal. Where he had gone to school. He very likely never would’ve known a lot of these people-- different accents would suggest they had come from different areas, but he tried to picture a world in which he did know them. Where they went to school together and had normal, everyday upbringings. Maybe Teresa wouldn’t ever have betrayed them. Alby and Chuck would still be alive. Minho would be some track star, probably, and maybe Thomas would’ve done something with numbers or coding, since according to WICKED, he was good at that. Brenda was so practical, he wasn’t sure what she would do, but he was sure she’d be good at it. Maybe Frypan would be a chef, or maybe something else entirely. And Newt… Thomas couldn’t bring himself to imagine a world for Newt. Any time he tried, he felt that same sinking, hollow feeling, like his heart was falling downwards into emptiness, leaving him forever with nothing but guilt, grief and regret. 

They went a while without either speaking, and Thomas wondered what was going on in Minho’s head, but he didn’t ask, because that wasn’t how they operated, and they had both had enough bad happen lately without rehashing it all for each other on the sand.

He couldn’t say exactly how much time had passed when he heard movement around him. Someone running, the distinct crunch of boots in wet sand. 

“Thomas! Minho!” They both turned, to see Frypan standing behind them. “The others are back, they need to see us.”

Thomas’ gut dropped. He couldn’t place why exactly-- but immediately, he imagined the worst. Brenda or Jorge or Gally or Vince dead. WICKED somehow rebuilt. He tried to imagine every worst case scenario, every possible horrible outcome. There were too many, and Thomas couldn’t put himself through imagining them, so he simply jogged alongside Minho and Frypan towards where they were apparently meant to be meeting… whoever wanted to see them.

When they got into the hut, Gally and Brenda stood there, both unharmed, but exhausted looking. Thomas let out a small sigh of relief, but was confused when he also saw Sonya standing and waiting, looking as concerned as the rest of them. A weird collection of people, he decided.

He waited with baited breath, looking between Brenda and Gally, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. They were both staring at the ground, which only made Thomas’ panic increase. 

“Whatever it is, just say it.” Thomas said. He heard his own voice, and it sounded harsh and empty, no part the crumbling and emotional reality he was facing inside his own head. 

Brenda and Gally exchanged a look, which was weird enough in itself, since Thomas had never really seen them interact. Gally took a deep breath, and cleared his throat. 

“Alright, you guys are gonna think I’ve lost my mind. But let me explain before you… freak out. Alright?” His voice was overly calm, lower than usual, and Thomas wasn’t used to him being the voice of reason in anything. His brows raised, and he watched as Fry, Minho and Sonya nodded with varying levels of understanding or paranoia on their faces. Thomas finally did the same, trying to remind himself to stay calm and listen, even though he could already feel his fight or flight instincts kicking in, as if he’d returned right to the middle of their war.

He cleared his throat again, looking between them nervously. “Newt’s alive.” 

Thomas’ mind went blank. If this was a joke, it was a sick joke. Thomas had seen it. He had seen Newt change, seen him fall. He had watched as Newt stopped breathing. He had known, known that it was over, that Newt was gone, and all he could think to do was give up. To go back to WICKED and make sure that nobody else lost someone they loved the way he just had. To hand himself over and let them take his blood and find out for sure whether it was true. Whether his blood really  _ could  _ have really saved Newt.

Nothing Gally was saying was registering in Thomas’ brain, though he knew he was still talking. He got that it was an explanation of how they’d found him, but all Thomas could hear was static and buzzing in his ears. It felt like the world was lurching beneath him, because it couldn’t be possible, but if it was, he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want an explanation. He just wanted to  _ see  _ Newt again. He wanted proof. He wanted to see life in his eyes again and the rise and fall of his chest. He wanted to tell him he was sorry, to beg for forgiveness, to just hug Newt, because in all that time, he wasn’t sure he ever had. Not properly anyway. 

Thomas didn’t wait to hear more, to hear the rest of the story, he just took off running. It was like being back in the Glade. The overwhelming, unyielding feeling that he had to  _ go _ . That it was his responsibility to find a way out, that staying in the Glade wasn’t helping anyone, but he could help people by going. By running. By finding a way.

He went straight for the medical hut, figuring that if Newt was alive, that’s where he would be. He couldn’t have been well looked after out there, and what of him being a crank? Would he find Newt tied to some bed, cranked out and completely different? Physically changed forever, unable to recognise anything but his anger? Or was this all fake? Did they find his body and nothing else? Was Gally lying? Had Thomas misunderstood?

He was sure he was being followed, but he couldn’t hear anything but static and his own panicking thoughts. 

When he got into their little medical area, he could see Vince and Jorge, as well as a few of their more medically trained residents, standing around one of their beds. They didn’t have many, but they were a necessity for a place like this, where people needed a place to rest that wouldn’t make things worse for them.

“Is it true?” He heard his own voice, but only barely, the clouds around his head clearing only in his desperation to get a real answer. His breathing was heavier, heavier than it should’ve been maybe. Eyes landed on him, but Thomas barely registered who was there. 

“Thomas.” He felt a hand on his shoulder, and someone was yanking him back. Gally stared into his eyes, his expression harsh, and once again, Thomas was reminded of the maze. Of Gally knocking him on his ass because he had been so quick to run, to ignore, the push boundaries. But how could he do anything else? How could he hear that Newt was alive and be expected to sit around and wait? To pretend his entire life hadn’t just shifted drastically and uncontrollably. “Thomas, you need to listen, it’s more complicated than--”

“I know you.” Thomas recognised the voice instantly, even croaky and small and after months of not hearing or seeing him. No photos. No recordings. Nothing but his memories, yet it was all starkly clear in that moment. Newt was sitting up, despite people rushing to tell him to lay back down. 

There were still veins down his neck and some on his cheek, but his brown eyes were wide and aware. They were Newt. A confused, sick-looking, pale Newt, but Newt nonetheless. The words gave him some pause, though he couldn’t fully process them. 

“Thomas, trust me, you don’t want to--” 

“Subject A2. You’re the one with the cure. The one who stabbed me.”

Thomas thought he was going to be sick. He barely noticed when he was hauled back out of the hut, stopped outside, Minho holding one of his arms in a vice and Gally with his hands on Thomas’ chest, pushing him back and stopping him from running back inside.

“Are you there, Greenie? Are you hearing me?” Gally clicked in his face, and Thomas wanted to be annoyed, but he wasn’t. Annoyed wasn’t what it was, it was sheer emotion. He couldn’t name it, couldn’t control it, couldn’t put a finger on it. It was just emotional, threatening to run over, threatening to drown him. He managed to nod, managed to lock his eyes on Gally, managed to try to listen. “WICKED got him. After what happened in the Last City, WICKED got him. What was left of it. They did more testing, they…” Gally’s voice broke slightly, and Thomas might’ve taken more notice of what that meant if he wasn’t struggling to contain everything he felt within his own chest. “They Swiped him again, Thomas. He doesn’t remember us. All he remembers is what WICKED told him. He doesn’t know you.”

“Why did he call me A2?” Thomas managed, his voice sounding faint and distant to him, like his mind was a thousand lifetimes from his voice. 

“He only knows what WICKED told him.” Gally’s eyes were big and insistent, like he was trying desperately to get Thomas to hear him. “They must have told him who you were, but… only your subject and that you were the one that injured him.” He looked sad. Deeply sad. Thomas wondered if it was pity he could see in Gally’s eyes. “There’s more. Please, just come back to the other room with Fry and Sonya so we can explain, alright? Then you can come back and see him.”

Thomas couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, but he nodded, and Minho put a hand on Thomas’ shoulder, leading him back to the tent, as if sensing that Thomas was too out of sorts to even move on his own.

When they returned, the others were dead silent, and Thomas still wasn’t really listening. Maybe he’d be embarrassed of how he’d run off if not for all the emotion. But anyway, that was Thomas’ thing, right? That was why people had followed him. He was impulsive and stupid, but he got shit done. 

“Okay. Now that we’re all here.” Gally spoke, and Minho kept a hand on Thomas’ shoulder, like he was nervous that Thomas would run. It was fair, Thomas thought. He had been contemplating it. Though he didn’t know where to go now. He didn’t know if he could look at a Newt who didn’t know anything, who was back with WICKED, without breaking down entirely. “There’s more.”

They were all silent, waiting. “As Thomas and Minho just saw, Newt doesn’t remember. He was Swiped again when WICKED found him. They resuscitated him, and ran further tests on him. He doesn’t remember us, the mazes, or anything else. The only thing he really knows is why he was in the maze in the first place. Because his sister is immune.” 

It didn’t immediately make sense to Thomas, but Minho and Fry immediately turned to Sonya. Then it clicked. Same blonde hair. Same brown eyes. Sonya just blinked at them, probably wondering why she had been brought there at all until that moment.

“They told him that his little sister was immune, that she had escaped. They told him her name was Sonya, and Newt believes it. He told me earlier that it…  _ feels  _ true to him. That he can tell it’s true.” Gally sighed. “We brought you all here to tell you, because… this is a lot. We have no idea whether we can break through the Swipe or not— but we figure people who know him best are the best chances of reminding him…” He frowned, and his eyes landed directly on Thomas for a moment. Thomas’ eyes felt unfocused and tired, but he tried to meet Gally’s gaze. “He… thinks we left him behind to die. To be taken by WICKED. He was tested and tortured by WICKED, a lot, and he’s… he’s not as…”

“He’s angry and defensive. Kinda biting.” Brenda said. When Gally threw her a look, she added. “No pun intended.”

“I don’t understand.” Sonya said softly, and Thomas let his eyes fall on her. He didn’t know her all that well, but now that he knew, he could see the resemblance. He could see Newt in her eyes and the curve of her nose. He could see it in her stance and her unsure gaze. “I don’t talk like him. I got my memories back, and I-I don’t remember him.”

Gally shrugged, “Newt was always stubborn as hell. And he’s older, so maybe… maybe he just refused to let go of the accent.” He guessed, though Thomas was sure no one, not even Newt, could answer that question. “I don’t know about the memories. But when was WICKED ever actually honest with us?” 

“You look like him.” Fry said slowly. “I didn’t see it before, but you do.” 

Sonya looked frustrated, maybe a little emotional. “How could I not remember?” 

“None of us do.” Minho said slowly. “Don’t beat yourself up for not remembering him.”

Silence fell over their little gathering, and Thomas tried hard to stop his swimming thoughts. 

“Are you okay, Thomas?” 

He heard the words, but Thomas didn’t actually know who asked them. 

“I need some air.” He said slowly, before turning to walk back out into the open air. People were mulling around, probably wondering what had happened to bring the group together away from everyone like that, but Thomas didn’t stop to engage with anybody. 

He walked until he felt far enough away from anyone, and then dropped down into the wet sand, ignoring the way it soaked through his pants. He didn’t care. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. He needed a moment. 

It was a while before he was approached. But someone dropped into the sand beside him. Then someone else. Then a third person. Thomas didn’t have to look up. He knew who was there. Minho. Frypan. Gally. The last of Maze A. The last of the people with their memories of it, anyway. 

Thomas could remember when they’d left the maze. Gally had tried to stop them, things had been so tense. So much paranoia and distrust and anger amongst the lot of them. So much rivalry that had come from nothing but WICKEDs manipulation. Their stupid variables. 

The silence stretched for a few minutes, but eventually it was Thomas who spoke. 

“I worked for them for so long. I helped design those stupid fucking mazes, and all it ever did was hurt people I love. This shit, all of it, it’s my fault. Chuck, Alby, Newt, Teresa, it’s all my fucking fault. And the great joke of it all is that it was me all along. I was the shuck cure all along.” Thomas was trying for angry, but his voice came out deeply, resoundingly sad. Empty. He looked at the waves and he tried again to imagine a world without WICKED. He tried to imagine a Newt without the Flare. Without the maze. Without his limp. He tried to picture him. Golden, fluffy haired. Tall. Confident. Funny. As smart as he ever was. He tried to imagine him smiling, laughing, having a life, maybe with a girl on his arm. Or a boy. For a split second, Thomas even let himself imagine that it was him. That in another lifetime, the two of them, unscarred and unbroken, would have found each other. That Newt would look at him with love in his eyes and Thomas would match it, and that everything could be okay. But that image, pretty though it was, would never be the truth. Thomas was just a subject WICKED had showed Newt. The boy with the special blood who had stabbed him.

“Don’t give yourself undue credit, Greenie.” Gally said, and despite the rough way he spoke, Thomas could hear the kindness in his voice. It was unfamiliar still, and a little unsettling. “They’d have done it with or without you, and you were just a kid. Besides, you got everyone out.”

Apparently Frypan and Minho were surprised by Gally and Thomas’ new friendship too, because they both eyed him in surprise. Thomas didn’t. He had long since realised Gally wasn’t a bad person, he was just a broken person. Like the rest of them. 

“Yeah, he’s right.” Minho said slowly, “You gave the Right Arm all the coordinates and information that got the other mazes out. You sent yourself into the maze. We never would have escaped without you. Never even come close.”

Thomas just stared at the ground. He felt guilty that they were comforting him, when it seemed so obvious it should be the other way around. 

“How’s Sonya?” Thomas asked, for something to do.

“She’s with him in there.” Gally explained softly, looking at the ground. “Telling him about her was the only way I could convince him to come. He thought I was with WICKED.”

“So he knows Sonya and that Thomas stabbed him. That’s it?” Fry seemed reluctant to weigh in, but the conversation was weird and lonely and the rest of them had to be in it, so he supposed misery loves company. 

“We’ll make him remember.” Minho finally said. “I’m not just gonna accept that it’s over. There’s got to be more.” Minho always was the strongest willed, the one most determined when push came to shove. He likely  _ would  _ be the one to convince Newt again.

“He’ll remember Thomas eventually.” Fry said slowly, and they all glanced up at him. He paused, seeming nervous to continue the thought, before continuing when it was apparent that no one else was going to. “It was different.” He said finally.

Thomas felt weirdly embarrassed, though he couldn’t place why. 

“He loved you.” Minho added. Thomas was most surprised by that one. Gally had made it clear he thought that, but Minho too? How? Why? It had taken Thomas a month of grief to realise that he had desperately, painfully pined after the other Glader for far longer than he’d been aware. So how did everyone else already seem so sure? Thomas wasn’t good with being  _ seen _ , and it felt like they were really seeing him now, in a way he couldn’t combat or control. 

“He loved all of us.”

“No, but he  _ loved  _ you.” Minho answered back instantly, without hesitation. No one spoke. No one answered. Thomas had nothing to say. He didn’t know if it was true, but even if it was, it didn’t matter now. Love was irrelevant when Newt didn’t even remember them. Any love that may or may not have been there was gone now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas talks to Newt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually ?? lowkey really proud of this chapter, so I'm excited to see what you guys think! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and for the comments, I could not appreciate it more! Please feel free to leave any/all feedback here or on my tumblr @songbvrd

“A2.” Newt said slowly, “Thomas, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Thomas answered slowly, moving to sit in front of Newt. It had taken him hours to decide to come here, and several conversations with friends. He still wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, wasn’t sure how he was going to handle talking to a Newt who looked at him so coldly, who didn’t know him, but knew of him through WICKED. A Newt he had failed. Fundamentally and completely failed. Newt went through hell, again and again and again, and they hadn’t saved him. Not from death, nor from WICKED.

It had taken a lot of convincing to bring him to this point. He had become convinced that maybe he shouldn’t be the one to talk to Newt, especially since Newt knew Thomas had stabbed him. It had been Minho in the end, who had convinced him.

With really only one sentence, actually. Nothing had been hitting before that. All he’d said was: ‘Would he give up on you?’

“People keep telling me you were my best friend.” He sounded cold. Like he didn’t believe it maybe. Thomas couldn’t blame him; after all he’d been through. Newt didn’t know the context or the history. He knew what he’d been told. Thomas was immune. Rather than saving Newt, he’d stabbed him. Thomas was the reason WICKED got him again.

Thomas swallowed hard, nodding. “I am. I was. Me and Minho.”

“WICKED said you stabbed me.”

His stomach lurched, and Thomas nodded, “I did.” It was tentative and awkward. Awful. Thomas hated doing this, he hated having these conversations. He was absolutely terrified of what was going to happen, absolutely terrified of what it meant to be losing Newt all over again. He was terrified that the more he tried to hold on, the more he would be able to feel Newt pulling away from him. Being gone. Really gone. All over again. 

“Why?”

“You begged me to.” Thomas said finally. “We didn’t know that there was a permanent cure and-- and you begged me to kill you before you could hurt me or anyone else.”

“No offence, but you didn’t exactly finish the job, mate.” 

Thomas flinched. When he glanced up again, Newt was watching him. Studying him, maybe. Thomas had been avoiding looking at him, but Newt looked a little better already. The veins had faded, though weren’t completely gone, and though he still looked pale, exhausted and sickly, he seemed more awake. Maybe more rested. Probably the serum had done that, it forced people to sleep, and Thomas hadn’t gone near him for nearly twenty-four hours.

“Did you talk to the others…?” Thomas asked, fiercely trying to avoid getting emotional again but failing. 

“Yeah.” Newt nodded. The way he answered was calculated and cold, and though Thomas had desperately wanted to hear that voice again, that accent, it felt too different. It felt like a puppet of Newt. Not the real man. “Minho just made jokes. Frypan barely said anything, except to ask me questions. Gally… well, he already knew a bit more, since he found me.” He paused, eyeing Thomas, like trying to gage his reactions to what Newt was saying, trying to measure him up.

“I’m sure they’re overwhelmed.” Thomas told him slowly, trying to keep calm, trying to keep from giving too much away, though he wasn’t sure what he had to hide in the first place. It felt like a game of chess, but Thomas didn’t know how to play. 

“Mm.” Newt hummed a reply. “They all had a lot to say about you.”

Thomas raised his brows. This was news to him, completely. Why would  _ they  _ be talking to Newt about Thomas? He knew they had agreed that since he and Thomas were so close (he’d left his last note to Thomas only, after all), it should be Thomas who tried to remind him most, but he didn’t know the others would try to bring him up too. “Huh?”

“Apparently we’re very close.” There was some implication to the words, but Thomas had no idea what. He felt like he was being accused of something, but he couldn’t place it. Couldn’t figure out what he could possibly accuse him of. 

“You were my best friend.” Thomas answered slowly, “Of anyone, I just… I don’t know, there was something different.” Again, he felt the hollow and painful vulnerability he had been trying to ignore or shove away. 

“Jeez, mate, you talk about me like I’m buggin’ dead already.” The comment sounded so simultaneously authentic to Newt, whilst also sounding totally foreign. The wit was all the same, but the bitterness and blame, that was completely new to Thomas. 

“I’m—“ He began to apologise, but Newt cut him off.

“So the serum I got given. It’s yours.” Newt commented, brows raised, seeming like he was asking questions more out of politeness than because he wanted to get to know Thomas. He could understand, but the whole thing just… hurt.

“Uh… yeah. Teresa made it after you…” He paused, swallowing, “But I don’t suppose you know her either.”

Newt shrugged, “I was only told about you and Sonya. And I didn’t know any of the rest of it, only that you’re the reason WICKED got me again.”

Thomas swallowed again, desperately trying to clear the painful lump that kept building in his throat when he tried to talk to Newt. “How did Sonya take it?” He tried to change the subject, tried to find something else, something better to say. WICKED couldn’t have possibly known that he would ever see Newt again. That they would ever find each other. Yet it was like they had set up an insurance policy. If Newt ever was to get away, if he ever was to find them, they had set up the failsafe of Newt believing his best friend to be a traitor who tried to kill him. 

“She seemed confused.” Newt admitted, and his eyes finally fell away from Thomas. Thomas let out a breath, feeling like he could finally breathe again after the cold scrutiny he had endured at the beginning of their conversation. “I supposed that’s what WICKED wanted though, right? What you wanted?”

Thomas felt like something cold and metal had hit him directly in the chest, an ice spreading through his veins. “What?”

“You worked for WICKED, right? Helped to design the mazes, helped send us in there? That’s what they told me.”

“I got sent into the maze because I--”

“But you’re the main character, right, Thomas?” Hearing Newt call him his full name, not the nickname he’d become accustomed to, that he’d  _ loved,  _ Thomas had to avert his eyes. He couldn’t watch Newt anymore. Even as composed as he was (Newt never really  _ did  _ get angry, except for when the Flare was taking over), Thomas could read the expression. The detachment and judgement in his eyes. He didn’t remember Thomas, but he had taken an instant dislike to him, and that much was painfully clear. “I’m just the collateral damage. You built WICKED up, changed your mind, and you got to go free? But me? I’m still their lab rat. Only now I’m a lab rat with a bad lung.”

Thomas felt as though all the air had been knocked out of him. He could feel the tears in his eyes instantly, and he wished he could stop them. He wished he could force the emotion back inside, but he didn’t know how. It wasn’t all that common for things to be quiet enough for him to process. Everything he’d gone through, from maze through to Safe Haven, had been a constant push. Constantly moving, never stopping, never having time to process. He hadn’t even realised how much Newt meant to him until he was already gone. He’d never learned how to deal with that emotion, how to feel it. But he was  _ feeling  _ it now, all of it, and he wished it would stop.

When Thomas opened his mouth to speak again, he wasn’t surprised to hear his voice shake and crack. “I would’ve done anything to save you.”

Newt blinked at him, and Thomas could see the compassion there. The compassion he’d always been able to see in Newt. Their Glue. Their best friend. In many ways, their emotional leader if not their physical one. They wouldn’t have made it for shit without him— he was the only one who kept them sane and human. He was the only one who could calm Thomas down when the whole world felt overwhelming and suffocating. It was ironic, in a cruel, twisted way. WICKED had known that. 

But then that compassion was replaced with detachment, defiance even. “Why should I believe that?” Newt asked.

“I have no reason to lie.” He answered softly. Thomas felt intensely vulnerable. He felt as though his entire chest had been cracked open, like his heart sat between them, battered and broken, and there was nothing he could do to protect it. “But um…” He moved to pull the necklace off over his head. He never took it off, never moved it. People must know, or at least suspect, but no one ever commented, and Thomas didn’t offer it. “Your own words.” He said slowly, holding the necklace out to Newt.

Newt stared at it like it might bite him. 

“You gave me this right before you…” He trailed off. “I’ve been wearing it since. I guess it’s yours, really. And if you don’t… if none of its true anymore, you should have it back.”

Newt stared at it for a moment, making no move to take it from Thomas. So Thomas moved closer, dropped it into his lap, and turned to leave. It was getting too much, too painful, and he didn’t particularly want to cry to this cold, distrusting person left in the wake of his best friend. 

He felt like he couldn’t breathe until he left the tent, and when he got outside, Gally, Minho and Frypan waited. The four remaining Gladers had become a kind of weird, inseparable unit in the short while since Newt had returned, and while Thomas thought everyone acted outwardly as though they were doing it out of concern for him, he thought maybe they were all falling apart. 

Newt was there, but he was gone, and with him, the binds of their little group seemed to both tighten and weaken all at once. They held tighter to each other, but there was a note of something in the air. Fear, Thomas thought. Fear that they, their friendship, their family, couldn’t possibly survive this. They had lost people before, obviously, but this was different. Newt’s ‘death’ had been the nail in the coffin, as it were, and now to have him back, but still not really  _ have him back _ … it was different than any of the other losses they’d incurred. Worse, maybe. Worse because Newt was always the least deserving of the pain, and somehow he had it the worst.

But now they were all looking at him, and Thomas felt like he might vomit. He felt as though he’d been running through the maze helplessly for hours, like he’d just realised no matter how hard he ran, he wasn’t going to make it back alive. 

“Thomas…?” Fry asked, looking concerned, and Thomas just kept walking, unsure where he was going, but knowing darn well that it had to be far away from this place. Far away from Newt, or the shell of him, and far away from the worried glances he was getting. He didn’t want people to look to him for gossip or leadership or anything else. Paradise sounded nice, but in practice, it was just more of the same. More torture. More games. Never free of WICKED. 

It was a while before anyone caught up with him, and when they did, it wasn’t who he expected. 

“Hey, Greenie.” Gally’s voice was pleasantly neutral. It wasn’t laced with sympathy or softness. It was just Gally. Just Gally being present, like he had been since Thomas had first woken up. 

“Hey, Gal.” It was weird, the instinctive nickname that slipped from his lips, but neither of them commented on it. “Draw the short straw?”

“Somethin’ like that. Nah, just worried about what your shuck ass would do all alone.” Thomas glanced at him, questioningly, so Gally went on. “Whenever no one’s watching ya, you screw something up.” He teased.

Thomas tried to smile, but he was sure it looked as pathetic as it felt. “Yeah. Guess you were right all along, you dumb shank.” 

“We’re gonna get him back, y’know?” Gally said it with so much assured ed’s that Thomas almost believed it. Almost. 

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see… any of him.” He admitted. He hadn’t wanted to talk about this, but Gally had a knack for getting past his defences, unexpected as that development was. “Like, he was so… cold.”

Gally cleared his throat. “I’ve known Newt a long time. Longer than you, at least to my living memory. Can I tell you something about him? A secret I’ve learned?”

Thomas glanced up at Gally, willing to take whatever insight he might have into the situation. “You ever seen Newt cry, Greenie? Ever seen him lash out or panic or whine or complain? I’m not talking about when he had the Flare, but before. All that time with him, did you ever see him cry?” 

Thomas thought for a moment. Newt could be incredibly sarcastic and snippy, he was wittier than Thomas by a long shot, but no. When Thomas really thought about it, mostly, Newt was always joking around. Even when he was hurt, even when his leg was especially bad, even when they lost Alby… he had never seen Newt cry. He shook his head slowly, his interest piqued. 

“Newt’s our… our parent on the sinking Titanic.” Thomas didn’t know where he knew that from, but he did. Ah, the Swipe, leaving him with enough to function, but none of himself or his past, he thought bitterly. “Everything is going to hell, and there’s no way out, and you’re waiting for the inevitable, and your parent has gotta be losing their shuck mind, knowing they have no chance either. But the parent doesn’t cry. They don’t give up. They put their kids to bed, and sing to them and tell them stories until the very end. When hell rises up and the boat is sinking, Newt doesn’t cry. He doesn’t open up. He doesn’t shut down. He lifts his chin and pretends to be fine.”

Thomas still didn’t fully understand, but he suddenly felt deeply regretful for not realising all this sooner regardless. 

“He’s scared. He doesn’t remember shit and he’s outnumbered and overwhelmed and all these people want something from him. I’m sure you know what that’s like. But Newt doesn’t shut down. He boards up. He’s terrified and cold is the only way he knows how to handle it. To protect himself.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“He’s not gone, Thomas. He’s just protecting himself.” He paused, “We just… we have to be the parent on the Titanic for a little while. We have to help him even if it hurts like a griever sting to the eyeball because it’s what he’d do for us. And he’s already lost himself, he doesn’t deserve to do it again.”

Thomas blinked at Gally. Weirdly, it made him feel hopeful. Maybe Newt wasn’t gone, but simply withdrawn and afraid and confused. Maybe given enough time, they could find him again. Draw him back out, bring him home. 

“When did you get kinda smart?” Thomas asked. 

Gally shrugged, “I always was. We were just on opposite ends of somebody else’s game.” 

They stood in silence for a moment. Thomas hadn’t even bothered to watch where he was going, but he found the two of them standing perched up on high rocks, overlooking the beach and the Haven. Was his instinct always to run, to climb, to escape? Objectively, it was beautiful. The wind rushed through his hair and blew it around, he could feel the growing chill of it, the salt on his skin. His shirt whipped around his stomach and it made him feel alive. Quintessentially alive in a way he’d never been allowed to feel before. And he wanted to be relieved. Or happy. Or something. 

But all he could think of was the boy they had left behind, however unwillingly. However unintentionally. 

He tried to picture their Newt sitting with them. He tried to picture the way the sun would catch on his hair. The way he’d smile. He tried to picture him, clean and cured and safe. He could hear Newt’s voice calling him Tommy. He already missed that damn necklace. 

“I gotta not be so emotional about this.” Thomas said slowly.

“Nah.” Gally argued, “You’re an emotional person, and that’s fine. You just gotta put the emotion on us and not on him, that’s all.”

Thomas sighed. “It’s all my fault, man.” Gally opened his mouth to argue and Thomas cut him off. “It is. I helped design the maze. I sent you all in. I led us into the Scorch. I didn’t stop him coming after Minho. I didn’t get him the cure on time. I stabbed him.” He took a sharp, shaky breath. “Everything I put you all through and I— my blood was the fucking cure, Gally.” He’d said it before— back on the beach, the last time they’d talked more openly about Newt. “Because of me, he never got free of WICKED. Not even in death. I just fucked him up worse and left him to them.”

There was a stretch of silence, broken only by the strangled sob Thomas took far too long to realise was his own. Gally didn’t comment, he just stood and let Thomas cry, kept him company. If Thomas was going to go back in there and try to be the parent on a sinking ship, he needed to get some of this out. Some of the unmistakable pain of his own blistering, unbridled guilt. 

“It’s all my fucking fault, and now he’s gone, and I can’t—“ He broke off, unable to continue through his sobs. Gally, less awkward than Thomas would’ve expected, pulled him into a hug, and Thomas let himself dissolve into it. It was the first time he’d cried like this since. The first time he’d let himself sob, let the ache wrack and hollow his body until his chest was empty and there was nothing left. “I never said it.” He whispered, his voice shaking nearly beyond recognition. “I never  _ fucking  _ told him.” 

“He knew.” Gally‘s voice was hushed, and Thomas was surprised how soothing he found it. “And you’ll get time. You’ll get to tell him. I promise. He’s still in there. And we’re going to get him back. It’s a different kinda fight, I know, but we got Minho back. You got out of the maze. You made it through the Scorch. It’s a different kind of challenge, but we’re going to get Newt back too. No man left behind.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt spends some time with the Gladers. Thomas gets to know Sonya a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one hurt my feelings to write a little bit! I hope you guys feel like I did the characterisation in this one justice!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, and as always, please feel free to leave any/all feedback here or come shout at me on tumblr @songbvrd.

“You really don’t want to know? Not even a little?” Frypan asked, and Minho shook his head.

“Man,  _ hell  _ no. Like, does it suck that it’s gone? Yes. Do I wish it wasn’t? Yes. But would I want to find out now? Absolutely shucking not.”

Thomas chuckled, and Gally shook his head. “You guys are being dumb shanks. Doesn’t matter now. Whatever lifetime ago it was; it’s not now.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.” Fry argued, shaking his head. He put a grape in his mouth and went on talking. “I mean, it belonged to me, yeah? So it should still belong to me, even if I wouldn’t use it.”

“Greenie.” Gally rounded on him. “Thoughts?”

“Honestly, I—“

His thought was cut short by the clunk of someone joining them. The four boys all turned, and Newt had slid onto the edge of one of the benches, food on the table between them. Everyone just stared.

“What? Don’t stop on my account, ye all look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It was sarcastic, and he actually smiled, but something about it felt angry and judgemental. “What are we talking about, boys?”

Gally spoke up, ever the brashest of them. “We’re debating whether or not we’d want our pre-WICKED names back if we could have them.”

“Ah.” Newt glanced around, “So what’s the count then? Who says no?”

“Me and Gally think no. Fry says yes. Thomas was just about to weigh in when you showed up.”

“Hmm.” He did that humming thing again, then turned his dark eyes directly to Thomas. Thomas felt like a deer caught in headlights. Trapped there, unsure whether to hide or stare directly into it. “And what do you think, Tommy?” Newt asked, and Thomas’ stomach flopped when he heard the nickname, but the tone was unmistakable. Cold. Judgemental. Ironic. Like he was being baited. 

Whatever thought Thomas had been going to speak before had escaped when Newt joined them, and Thomas found himself unable to look away from him. He still looked too skinny. His hair was still matted and dried with specks of blood. The veins were no longer visible at all on his face, but some still snaked up his collarbones. His eyes were circled with darkness, either from lack of sleep or the general horrors he’d seen and faced of late. He didn’t look good, and he didn’t look himself. Thomas fought the desperate urge to hug him. 

“I don’t know.” He finally managed, conscious that he’d been looking at Newt too long. Newt looked right back, almost like he was challenging Thomas.

“Well, I, for one, would like to know. I’d like all my memories back, but I suppose there’s no point crying over spilt milk.” Newt told them all, “Don’t suppose my name can get any worse than Newt anyway.”

“I like Newt.” Minho answered, seeming far calmer than Thomas himself was. They were all doing much better with being the sinking ship parents than Thomas was. Thomas felt like he was panicking and letting the family down. “It suits you. I can’t imagine you with anything else.”

“Me neither,” Gally admitted. “I feel like I’ve known you as Newt my entire life, though I have no idea how long I’ve actually known you.” 

Newt shrugged, “Hate to break it to you, but whoever you knew in the maze got Swiped. Fresh Newt, newly cured and just trying to get to know his sister.”

It was cold, and Thomas was sure he wasn’t the only one who felt it. Newt distrusted them. Of course he did. His only memories of life so far were being tortured and alone. Who were they to him?

“Why are you with us and not her then?” Gally asked boldly, looking at Newt with the casual expression of someone who didn’t care much either way. After speaking with him on the beach and the rocks, Thomas wondered if Gally was just really good at building walls of not caring up around himself too. 

Newt just nodded his head vaguely away from them, and they all followed the sight. Harriet and Sonya sat together in the line where grass met sand, Sonya’s head in Harriet’s lap while Harriet ran her hands through Sonya’s hair. The moment looked incredibly intimate, and Thomas averted his eyes.

He felt a pang of longing though. A split second of wishing he had had even a moment of that peace.

“Sorry to disappoint.” Thomas managed.

“Eh. You shanks aren’t that bad. Least you’re not looking at me like I’m a crank. Some of the others clearly don’t trust me to be around. Figures. I don’t have the special blood you lot have.” He threw a glare Thomas’ way, as if his blood was his fault. 

“Shanks.” Fry repeated, glancing at the others, his eyes wide.

“Don’t get too excited,” Gally said with an irritated sigh, “He’s been using that terminology since I found him, doesn’t remember learning it or it being any different than normal words.”

Newt looked around, waiting for further clarification. “It’s Glader slang.” Minho said slowly, “We made it up. Back during the Maze Trials. People outside our maze don’t use some of the same words.” He explained.

Newt nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “I don’t know which is Glader slang and which isn’t.”

“We’ll tell you,” Minho answered relatively calmly. “Doesn’t matter though. Most people around here are used to us saying stuff like that.”

Newt looked around the place, as if he was committing everything he heard and saw to mind. He still seemed on edge. On guard. And Thomas knew as well as anyone that calm and passive as Newt could be, he could also hold his own very well. He wouldn’t have survived all that he had if he couldn’t, nor made an effective second leader. 

“How many of these people are from our maze?” He asked. Thomas tried to take that as a positive sign. He believed them at least.

“Just us.” Frypan glanced around the group, but he didn’t meet Thomas’ eyes. “We’re what’s left.”

Thomas looked at the five of them and tried not to think about everyone that wasn’t. Chuck. Winston. Alby. Zart. Teresa. Clint. Jeff. Countless others he didn’t have a chance to get to know so well. 

Newt took a moment to look at each of them, sizing them up. “The four of you then.” Thomas felt self conscious suddenly. What must they look like to Newt? Scratched up and tired, even after time in the Safe Haven. To Newt, they probably seemed lucky. Fresh clothes, alive, no black veins. He felt like he was picking at his own wounds when he found himself wondering if Newt blamed him for all of it even without knowing him. Maybe he should. Thomas built the maze. Thomas observed them for years. Thomas led them into the Scorch where many of them died. Thomas failed to save Newt. He was their leader and they had trusted him and he had failed them. He thought back to Newt’s letter again, but he had given it back. Told Newt to keep it. He wondered, somewhat painfully, if Newt had simply thrown it away. “I can see it. You all have that battle-worn hero look.” The words come out sarcastic and snide, and while Newt always was like that, there was none of his usual good humour. 

“You do too.” Thomas managed. When Newt met his eyes again, he was met with the same look of distrust.

“So what happened to ‘im then? The other bloke?”

They all stared at him.

“Y’know, the one from when we were little tots with no idea what WICKED would do to us.” He gestured to Fry, “Don’t think you were there. But the rest of you were. So where’s the other guy?”

Thomas didn’t understand, but the sinking feeling that Newt might know something more about before the maze than Thomas himself was troubling. Thomas knew what he had done for WICKED, he vaguely knew some things, but he didn’t know that. 

“Wait,  _ what _ ?” Minho asked, sounding suddenly less calm than he had before. So much for their staying calm to help Newt tactic, he kept throwing curveballs at them. 

“Yeah. WICKED showed me. Must’a been… I don’t know, ten, maybe. The lot of us hanging out in some room.” He raised his brows. “You don’t remember?”

Nobody answered, and Newt sighed. 

“And here I thought I was the one with no clue what was going on. Took me a minute to get it, I’ll admit. Didn’t recognise you all at first, and A2 was the only one they told me about.” Thomas flinched. One thing he did remember was how much he’d hated when Ava Paige or Teresa had called them all ‘subjects’. Now Newt was doing it too. “But we were definitely there. Friends, even. Looked like best friends. There was a girl too.” 

Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed. An uncomfortable hush fell over them.

So they were friends. Thomas, Minho, Gally, Newt, Teresa… They were friends. They were friends and Thomas put them into the maze. Teresa did. And Teresa remembered— which only made the whole thing worse. He didn’t know who the other guy was, but he could take a good guess. 

Thomas fought the urge to get up and run away, but maybe Minho sensed that, because he grabbed Thomas’ wrist against the table, holding him there. 

“WICKED took all our memories of before the maze.” Gally answered, remarkably calm against the fresh and awful information. No wonder he’d survived so long alone in the Scorch. He’d gotten smarter under pressure. Or maybe WICKED had lost the ability to control him— maybe he was always smarter than they’d believed. “We don’t remember knowing each other then.” He shot Thomas a sidelong look, and Thomas sort of wished they’d all stop knowing him so shucking well already. 

“Ah.” He nodded, “But you all knew A2 worked for WICKED? And you don’t care?”

Thomas’ heart sunk. Or whatever was left of it did anyway. He looked down at the table. 

“ _ Thomas  _ is the reason the right arm were able to help any of us at all. He gave up the coordinates and all the information. He sent himself in to try and help us.” Of all the people he expected to come to his defence, Gally was definitely  _ dead last _ . He had been the one who hated Thomas most, after all. But even the way he said his name, emphasising it, reeked of loyalty. 

“He’s also the reason we got  _ sent  _ in.” Newt argued, not bothering to look at him. “I’m sorry, but with my leg, and my lung, and everything I saw in WICKED, I’m finding this kumbaya act a little hard to stomach. I mean, what happened to the others? The other boy, the girl? Where are they now?” When no one answered, he sort of laughed. “Right, I see then.”

Thomas swallowed hard, and a sharp pain seemed to stab him in the temples. He doubled over on the table, gritting his teeth to keep from groaning. He had the altogether stupid and unhelpful thought that perhaps Newt would think he was faking it for attention, but then something else hit him instead.

The control panel. Sitting looking in on the maze, just like he did every day. Keeping an eye on Newt, Alby and Minho, tracking them specifically. Teresa being excited over their Killzone responses while Thomas seemed to silently speak to them, to try to will them to do or say the right thing. He had the image of sitting, staring, panicky at the screen. He could feel it, the way he’d been breathing, the way he’d been trying to calm down. Newt, laying in a bed, gritting his teeth to keep from screaming out across the glade. His blonde hair drenched with sweat as Minho sat beside him, head in hands. 

He had the image of himself, pacing around his room, the room he hadn’t even remembered till now, desperately thinking of the same thing over and over again.  _ Newt. Newt. Newt. How did he get to Newt? How did he save Newt? _

Because it was his fault his friend was miserable. It was his fault he’d shattered his leg. And while he hadn’t witnessed it, images conjured up in his mind haunted him. He’d only been doing all this to find the cure  _ for  _ Newt. And now Newt was so miserable he would actually… Thomas had done nothing but pace, desperate, and determined that he would find a way to get Newt the hell out of there. To save him. No matter the cost. 

When the pain in his temples faded, Thomas remembered it more clearly. “I sent myself in because of you.” Thomas said softly. They all looked at him. This was, obviously, new information to all of them, Thomas included.

“Are you okay, man? You looked like you were—“ Fry started, concerned, but Thomas cut him off.

“You… you injured your leg.” Thomas started, “Minho saved you but it was bad. Really bad. They weren’t even sure you were gonna make it for a bit because…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I couldn’t handle seeing you like that. So I sent myself in.”

Minho’s eyes were wide, locked on Thomas, his hand going from gripping Thomas’ wrist to laying flat beside Thomas’ hand. He knew the incident Thomas referred to, obviously, and maybe didn’t even know Thomas knew about it. Nobody else did, why should Thomas?

_ It’s your fault.  _ He could hear Newt’s accusations in his head.  _ Make amends and kill me.  _

He couldn’t look at anyone anymore, so he ducked his head down. 

Newt was watching him again, he could feel it. He felt like a bug under a microscope. He didn’t want to look up. He didn’t want to see the disbelief. The distrust. The coldness. He could take it from anybody else, but not from Newt. The sun was only just beginning to set, and he probably had hours before he could use sleep as an excuse to leave, but he couldn’t just look at Newt anymore. Some horrible part of him kept on wondering what they had done to Newt to make him so angry, when he had always been so kind. He was still level-headed, which was nice, but that level seemed not to think much of him. 

He tried to think about the words of the letter, to recite them in his head.  _ From the first moment you stepped into that maze, I knew I would follow you anywhere.  _ Had Newt really felt that about him once? It felt a lifetime away from seeing him now, and Thomas felt the longing wash over him in a wave. 

He thought about the nights when they’d been planning to get Minho. How Thomas had awoken screaming and Newt had been there to shush him back to sleep. How Newt would awaken screaming and Thomas would sit up with him until his mind quietened down. The odd few times when it had been exceptionally cold, and they had slept side by side, arm pressed against arm, close enough that Thomas could hear Newt breathing, the soft puffs of air of him asleep and safe and okay. He thought about how Thomas would confide all his fear in those quiet moments, when it was dark and they could hear the water washing up against the docks in the distance. How Newt would remind him that they were there because they trusted him. Because he was a good person. His heart ached as he thought, and that longing only seemed to worsen and spread like an infection. How desperately he longed to just have his best friend back. To just have Newt, for all his gentleness and snark and unexpected strength and cleverness. He had never wanted anything so much as he wanted Newt to look at him like he used to again, and suddenly, he could feel his chest clench with emotion. 

He wished he could hold onto Newt and never let go. 

“You know, we were all keepers once.” Gally made a valiant attempt at reviving the dead on arrival conversation. “Well, except you.” He said, nodding at Thomas, clearly trying for playful. 

“Keepers?” Newt asked, and Thomas was both saddened and relieved when he felt Newt’s gaze shift away. 

“Yeah, they were like… the leaders of specific areas. I was the Keeper of the builders. Minho was the Keeper of the runners, Frypan was the Keeper of the cooks.”

“What was I?” Newt asked, right on schedule.

“Second in command. You outranked all of us slintheads. You were sorta all of our Keeper.” Gally was smarter than Thomas gave him credit for, he kept thinking that. He’d found a way to engage Newt in something that didn’t refer back to him. Thomas wanted to leave.

“And you?” He looked to Thomas, and Thomas realised he’d thought all that too soon.

“A runner.” Minho jumped in. “You made him a runner. After he saved mine and Alby’s lives.” Thomas wasn’t sure when they became his defence squad, but it was both heartening and incredibly awkward. “Gally was pissed, but you always had faith in Thomas.”

Newt’s eyes narrowed on Thomas again, and Thomas wondered if he stared back hard enough, if he might be able to somehow gage what Newt was thinking. It was obvious he didn’t  _ like  _ Thomas. Saw him as a threat, maybe. Thomas tried to remember how he’d felt when he was coming out of the box on his first day in the maze. He’d been suspicious of everyone too, and that was without even knowing about WICKED.

But he had taken to Newt right away, wound up following him around and seeing him as a friend. He wished he could be that for Newt, only Newt woke up against him. 

He knew Ava Paige and Janson were both  _ dead _ , he’d witnessed enough to know that for sure, but he still couldn’t help cursing them for this. Whether it was them or not, it always felt like them taking Newt from him. Again. 

Not that Newt ever was his. 

But it felt like they had been close at one point. An  _ almost.  _

Minho slung his arm around Thomas’ shoulder, somewhat protective. “Dumb shank was always trying to put himself on the chopping block to save other people.” Thomas let himself be pulled into Minho’s side, and thought how this part was almost certainly for his benefit and not for Newt’s. Minho was trying to throw loyalty to him. Friendship. 

“Oh yeah. Weirdly even me.” Gally commented with a teasing smile. 

Frypan laughed, “Not really me. I didn’t get into shit as much as the rest of y’all, though.” Everyone laughed, except Newt, who was apparently just observing the weird pity party they were throwing him. 

“I’m going to have a walk around.” Newt said abruptly, getting to his feet. He held one leg a little differently, like he wasn’t putting any weight on it, and Thomas thought it must be bothering him. He wanted to ask about something, but didn’t.

“Maybe someone should come with you.” Minho pitched in. It was weird. Newt was always the one saying the sensible thing. The rest of them were usually sort of reckless and stupid-- it was usually him reminding people to take care of themselves. Thomas could see how they were all trying to make up some of that ground. Like Newt was there, but he wasn’t really there. “You don’t know the way around that well.”

Newt sighed, but nodded reluctantly. Thomas stared down at the table in front of him, conscious of at least two pairs of eyes looking at him. He suspected the other Gladers were probably trying to silently suggest he should go, but when Thomas conspicuously didn’t look up or answer, feeling as though he was at his limit with this, Gally spoke up. “I’ll go with you.”

He got to his feet and the two of them walked off, Newt not saying anymore to any of them.

A few minutes later, and a lot of awkward silence between the three remaining Gladers, Thomas got to his feet too.

“Thomas--”

“I’m fine.” He told Minho quickly, patting him on the shoulder. “Just going to go try to… I don’t know. Think.” He said quietly.

Minho shot him a worried look, and Thomas half smiled. “Mother hen looks good on you, man.” He joked, “I promise I’m okay, alright?”

Minho nodded and Thomas walked off back towards where he slept, the canvas tent as private as he’d ever had in his life. Some people seemed to share places, and the island was big, so it was a relief to Thomas that he was on his own. Really, properly on his own.

Granted, a sleeping bag and a hammock weren’t much, and he didn’t really have many possessions that belonged just to him anymore. 

If it were life a week ago, he would’ve lay down, held the necklace tightly in his right hand, and tried to have a nap. He had been doing that a lot lately. Trying to sleep as much of the time away as he was capable of doing. It probably wasn’t healthy, but he figured people were letting him get away with it because of all that he’d been through, and frankly, he wasn’t going to waste that leniency. 

He lay down and stared at the ceiling, letting his thoughts wonder. To the Glade. The Maze. The Scorch. WICKED. But mostly, he thought about the new memories that had come back to him. He thought about how clearly he’d been able to see it. Him and Teresa being beckoned away to clear out the infected. He thought about how clearly he’d been able to see when he came back in. When he’d been informed about what Newt had done. What had happened to him. How desperately he’d looked for the cameras showing them, trying to force himself to turn the sound on so that he could hear what they were saying, but feeling as though he had no right to hear it.

He thought about how he’d silently thanked Minho, how desperately he’d wanted to be there, to make sure they were alright, both of them. How it had been that that made him realise he couldn’t stomach it anymore. He thought about how he realised in that moment that he’d been hitting that moment for a long time, but how that was the moment he really  _ knew  _ that he couldn’t do it anymore. The tipping point. That it had been then that he’d devised a plan.

He thought about how his memories had come back, and how maybe it was possible to get them all back. Maybe it was like some switch in his mind he had to flip. Maybe there was a way to do it. He thought about that, about sitting alone at night, how he would make a conscious effort to try. To try to find that thing and flip that switch, no matter how much it physically hurt to do.

He had no idea how long had passed when he heard someone call out from outside the door (more like a flap) of his tent. 

“Uh, come in.” He said awkwardly, not recognising the voice and not sure who would come to see him besides the other Gladers, Brenda or Jorge. 

But then he saw who it was, and it clicked. It was a Glader, just not one of  _ his  _ Gladers. 

“Hi, Thomas.” Sonya said awkwardly. They hadn’t ever had that much to do with each other. They’d met obviously, spoken briefly, Thomas did know of her. But she had been stuck with WICKED for a lot of the time, and otherwise seemed mostly to stick with Aris and Harriet. Still, they knew each other enough. And maybe now they had something in common. Someone in common.

He sat up quickly, shifting back, swallowing. Now that he had seen the resemblance, it couldn’t be unseen. Really, it was amazing that he had ever missed it. There was something so similar in the way they held themselves even. In the blonde hair and the shape of the eyes. She didn’t carry his accent-- though Thomas wondered if it was because she’d been younger when she’d been taken. Knowing him, it was some kind of rebellion he’d taken as a child. A conscious choice to keep the accent, to not waver in how he spoke his words.

“Hey, Sonya.” He said slowly, blinking. “Um, feel free to sit.” He said slowly. The hammock was big enough that two people could sit in it, albeit a little awkwardly. She nodded and moved to sit, and he realised they seemed as absolutely unsure as each other.

“Harriet convinced me to come.” She admitted, looking up at him. “I wasn’t sure whether it was weird to come to talk to you.” 

Thomas blinked at her, trying to figure out what was going on. He knew what it was, of course, discussing what’d happened, but he figured she just wanted to know about how he had  _ nearly  _ died or something. He had to stop thinking of it as Newt dying, considering he was alive, heart beating, chest rising and falling. But it felt almost like he had died, and had been reborn as this other Newt. Thomas tried to think of an answer, but evidently, he waited too long, because she went on.

“I’ve been trying to talk to people who really knew him.” She explained. Thomas nodded. Right, so he was being asked what Newt was like. That was fine, he had plenty to say about that. “Except, everyone I talk to keeps… telling me I should talk to you.”

That was a little more surprising. “What?” He asked, “Why me? The other three knew him a lot longer than I did.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.” She said slowly. Now that Thomas was really paying attention, he could hear a hint of the same accent in her voice. Not as strong by any means, but there in some words. He wondered if being around Newt brought that back. “But everyone said you were his best friend. You were the one he left the note to.” She seemed sad, but sort of hopeful, and Thomas wished he had something better to say. It just… hurt. He didn’t know if he had anything to say that would actually help her. 

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” He said finally. He tried to think who even knew about the note. He supposed any of the three other remembering Gladers had probably seen him reading it. Probably realised what it was. Maybe even caught a word here or there. “He certainly doesn’t consider me his best friend now. I think he trusts me least.”

“He doesn’t trust anyone.” Sonya said slowly. “I don’t even think he trusts me,” She admitted, “I sometimes feel like he thinks I’m secretly with WICKED. I think he’s only partly convinced because of WICKED showing him some video of him and I as kids.”

Thomas’ eyes widened, “I didn’t know that. How much did they show him? Apparently he was shown images of us together as kids too, but none of us remember. And he said he wasn’t told any of their names or anything.”

She nodded, swallowing. “Yeah, he told me that.” She paused, seeming to consider what she was going to say before she went on. “You’re right. He trusts you least. But it’s only because WICKED made it that way. They told him that you worked for them and that you spent years working on the maze before they sent you in.”

He sighed, “I mean… that’s true. It’s the truth. Except that I sent myself in.” He said slowly, “And I… Didn’t know any of that until I was already in the maze, and once I did know, I told them. Actually, Newt was the one who forgave me first. He said it didn’t matter what I’d done before, it only mattered what I did now. And I was trying so hard to get us all out that he…” He trailed off, shaking his head. 

She wet her lips, “I suppose he knew you before he found out then. And had memories outside of…” She trailed off.

“Torture?” Thomas supplied, and she nodded at him. She bit down on her lip, and once again, Thomas thought of how much she looked like Newt. All the things they clearly had in common. It made his heart ache, because Newt and Sonya deserved to know each other, and it was  _ sick  _ that they didn’t get to. Sick that their only chance was now when they didn’t know each other. When Newt didn’t even know himself.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “And they sort of rigged it against you.” She said slowly, “Telling him what they did. Plus, you…” Her eyes flicked to Thomas’ chest, and he knew exactly what she meant by that. He was the one that had stabbed Newt. Never mind that Newt begged him too.

“I’m sorry about that,” Thomas said quietly. It felt weird that he had to say this to Sonya at all, considering a week ago he hadn’t known anything about her, certainly not that they were related. But now that he did know, he felt like he owed her an explanation as much as he felt he did everyone else. “I… I desperately didn’t want to do it, it just--”

“Thomas--”

“He begged me to, said I owed it to him and that he didn’t want to become a full crank and--”

“I know, Thomas.” She cut him off, a little more forceful. “I know. I already talked to Minho and Frypan. They both said they were absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you wouldn’t have done it if you had any other choice. And I know you didn’t know about your blood then and all of it. I know. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.” He said again, his voice quieter, a little more vulnerable. She reached out, rested her hand against his forearm lightly. 

“No,  _ I’m  _ sorry.” She said slowly. “I haven’t mentioned it to you because… well, it wasn’t mine to comment on and I figured you wouldn’t want to talk about it. But… I’m really sorry you had to do that. I’m sorry you had to do all of it. I know how much we suffered, and I can’t imagine how much worse it must’ve been for you. And I can’t imagine how shit it is to have him not remember why you did it. To distrust you for it…” Her voice was soft, concerned, like she was finally getting out what she wanted to say. “I… It’s awful. Really. And I’m sorry it happened and I wanted you to know I don’t blame you. And I’m sure he wouldn’t either if he could remember.”

Thomas looked down, trying to swallow down the rising emotion in his chest. God, he was so emotional lately and he couldn’t shut it off. Maybe he always had been. Maybe he’d just been too exhausted and panicked to use that on anything other than determination to save his friends. To get to the end. To get rid of WICKED. “Thanks.” He said softly, his voice sounding calmer than he thought it would. More controlled.

“I was also wondering if you could… maybe tell me more about him.” She sounded nervous now, “I know… it’s probably the last thing you want to do, but…”

He shook his head quickly, “No, of course.” He managed, trying to think what to say. “Um… okay, yeah. Well, he was the second in command in our glade. When I first popped up, our leader, Alby, took me around to show me. He scared the  _ shit  _ out of me, honestly. But then he introduced me to Newt and I was… a lot more comfortable talking to him. I don’t know why. He just seemed… friendly. He was. I mean, I think I annoyed the absolute shuck out of him when we first met, sorta followed him around. But then I went off running into the maze when I was told not to and Gally wanted me punished and Newt had my back. He made me a runner because he believed I had a shot at actually helping us.” He looked down at his hands, and once again lamented the necklace he didn’t have. He didn’t feel right without it. “When I told him about WICKED, like I said, he was the first to forgive me. He was the first to back my plan of leaving too-- of running away and trying to escape.” He swallowed. A few days ago, Thomas had refused to talk to most people and Gally had helped him. He’d never spoken about Newt. Now he was saying all this and… honestly, it felt good. Like maybe he needed to do it. It didn’t hurt that it was helping her too.

“He was my best friend.” Thomas went in, though it hurt. “Just about the only person who could stop me running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Sometimes, at least.” He half smiled, “When I found out he had the Flare,” His gaze flickered to her briefly, then fell back to his hands, “I don’t think I even processed it. He was always so calm, always the voice of reason, that when he freaked out at me… I don’t know, but it just seemed… impossible that Newt could have it. It felt like he deserved it the least out of anyone and… and it was the only time I ever really understood for even a second why WICKED did what they did. Because I would’ve done anything to save him too. But all I could do was try to save Minho and… and try to get to the serum at the same time. But Newt insisted on coming with me to get Minho, saying he owed him and…” His voice broke, and he cut off for a moment. “While we were in the city, he was getting worse. Visibly.” He fidgeted his hands, unable to sit still while talking about this, but unable to meet her eyes either. “He started to crumble and Minho and Gally tried to run back for the serum. Then he started swinging at me and I was just trying to hold him off and… he started screaming, saying awful things… things I don’t know if he meant.” He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a breath. “He begged and… and he was coming at me with his knife and I didn’t know what else to do, and I…” 

“You don’t have to…”

Thomas felt a tear slip down his cheek and he brought his hand up, roughly wiping at his cheeks, not acknowledging it past that. “Everyone loved Newt. Everyone. He was funny and kind and a good leader. He took care of everyone.” He let out a sad laugh, “Don’t think any of us know how to fill that spot. We were the ones who ran into danger head first. He was the smart one.” He swallowed again, trying to get rid of the painful lump in his throat.

“I’m so sorry, Thomas.” She said softly, her eyes locked on his when he finally glanced up. “Really, I’m sorry. For what it’s worth… I’m glad he has people who love him so much. Thanks… for talking to me.” 

She got up abruptly and exited, and Thomas was left wondering whether she meant what he thought she meant.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gally and Newt have a much needed conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting friends, I've been busy with a lot of projects, but my posts should be more frequent now! 
> 
> I hope you guys love this one, we'll be seeing some more POVs going forward :') 
> 
> As always, please feel free to leave me any/all feedback and come scream at me on twitter/tumblr at @songbvrd.

The choice to follow Newt had been a relatively easy one. Unthinking, almost. He could remember Newt from those first days in the maze. Back when he was a runner. He was younger then, and his attitude was different. He was a little more jovial then, he was more serious now. He had good reason to be, after all. He didn’t even remember them, let alone understand the years of hard won companionship. Things weren’t easy here. For any of them. 

Still, Gally figured of anyone, he might actually be the best choice for once. He had known Newt as long as Minho and Fry had, but he also was less likely to get overly emotional about knowing him. And as far as Thomas went, well, Gally understood what it was like to hate or fear the boy-- and he knew what it was like to be wrong about that too. Maybe he could help Newt with that too. Although, if he was honest, this was less about repairing a broken relationship and more about trying to repair his friend in general.

He had no idea if the Swipe could even be overridden, let alone without the same medical technology. For once, Teresa might’ve actually been useful to them to have now, but she was gone. Of those who were left, Thomas might’ve known, but he was as unaware as the rest of them. And everyone else? It was basically a non-starter. They had no idea how the technology behind it worked, and no idea how to undo what was essentially an erased memory.

The question, of course, was whether or not WICKED really could  _ steal  _ memories so easily. And, if so, whether or not they could really,  _ genuinely  _ be gone? Was there something they could do to bring them back? He had seen, had witnessed, Thomas seem to visibly get something back, like he had grasped it straight out of thin air. WICKED had given some people their memories back, so they couldn’t be entirely gone. They had to still be in there somewhere, like a part of your brain that had been hidden behind a wall. Maybe if they found the right way, the right thought, they were still capable of being accessed. He’d have to talk more to the other Gladers, from all the different mazes, about that.

“So…” Gally began as he walked by Newt’s side. It was weird to be back with him again. He thought of all those times with Newt as essentially his superior. How it had irritated him. Gally had always been focused on the good of the group, but he had been selfish in his attempts to get it. Newt had always been focused on the good of the group, but he had been so willing to hear everyone out and try to help them, so willing to be the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe it had infuriated Gally once, but he realised now exactly why Newt was the better leader. 

“We don’t have to make awkward small talk.” Newt told him casually. “If there’s something you want to say to me, you can just say it.”

Gally thought about that. Sure, there were a lot of things he wanted to say to Newt. Of course, now that Newt had asked him so directly they’d all fully escaped his mind. 

“I don’t know what I wanted to say exactly.” He admitted. “I just… missed you, I s’pose. Like we all did.” It was a very particular level of emotional honesty from Gally, but it was easier when he knew it meant nothing to Newt. 

“Ah.” Newt nodded. “I never really thanked you. For bringing me to my sister. So… thanks, y'know. I was pretty sure you were with WICKED or something worse. I wasn’t expecting to actually see her again. It was… it’s nice to know she’s alive and okay.”

Gally nodded, “Do you remember anything else? Or were you shown anything else?”

Newt took a few deep breaths. “Yeah. A few things. They weren’t memories though, just clips. And I’m not sure what to do with a lot of them.”

This piqued Gally’s interest. It really did seem like another variable— the rest of them remembering but only from the Maze onward and Newt knowing things from before but not remembering. It was sick. Like WICKED never would stop hurting them.

But Newt simply went on. “I remember seeing us find out that he and the girl weren’t coming into the Maze with us. I remember how angry everyone got. I didn’t recognise everyone, I guess most of them are dead, but you, Minho and I were definitely there.”

Uh-huh. This wasn’t news really. Gally knew what Thomas had done in the past. Part of him still wanted to be angry, but Thomas had proved himself ten times over since then. 

“To be honest, it seems like everything they gave you was to make you distrust us.” Gally said, his voice unusually pensive and thoughtful.

“Distrust him, y’mean?” The former second in command glanced back, and though they were already out of range of Thomas, Gally knew exactly who he meant.

“Yeah.” Gally admitted, “I don’t know if they did, hell, I don’t even know if they knew how close you two were, though I could guess.” He said quietly. “But yeah, it does seem that way.”

Newt cleared his throat, and his dark eyes settled on Gally with that same unreadable intellect he’d always had. “But none of the footage was manipulated. It was all the truth, no?”

Gally knew where he was going with this, and it only made his nerves build again. He couldn’t say why he was invested in this. He had spent so long hating Thomas. Resenting him for what he had done to them, for his part in it. 

“Yes, but you’re missing all of the context.” Gally argued.

Newt sighed at him, staring straight ahead. Being around Newt like this always made Gally remember the early days. When they were still building the Glade. When they had a different leader and a different way things worked and Newt was always the one everyone went to when they were scared or frustrated or confused. And he was always so calm. So rational. 

He was being calm and rational now, but that wasn’t what they needed. They didn’t need calm and rational, they needed emotional awareness. They needed the Newt who put his faith in his friends and risked everything, even knowing he was sick. He couldn’t blame Newt for being smart and for guarding himself, but he could also see how it was breaking the hearts of his friends. Maybe of him too. 

He and Newt were similar in some ways and totally different in others. They had both been focused entirely in the good of the Gladers. They had just dealt with it in vastly different ways. While Gally thought it was best for them to stay, to try not to aggravate WICKED, to have strict rules that would keep them all safe, Newt was more communal. He chose to listen to everyone before deciding, to try to make things as fair and equitable as possible. That was why Newt was the better leader. Why he always had been. 

“Somehow, I doubt context changes this. How would it change someone stabbing me? The same person who put me in that maze in the first place.”

Gally frowned, “You were best friends, man.” He paused, “Anyway, he’s not the only one here. You, me, Frypan, Minho, we were together years before Thomas showed up. Maybe you could try to learn to trust us, if not him.”

Newt gave him a look, and Gally could see him calculating. Thinking. Like he was trying to decide whether or not he could even begin to try to trust Gally. It was fair, really, but Gally was hoping the fact that he’d brought him here had earned some good will for him at least. And if he had good will -- annoying as he knew he was -- then surely he could convince Newt to give the others a chance too. Maybe Thomas would come last, but that was fine, as long as they could bring Newt back around. He knew eventually they would budge. He’d spent enough time around them to figure they were at least that important. 

“You know, you were always the one giving the pep talks before.” Gally told him with a smile, “Not sure I ever saw someone so good at being kind to people when they were panicking. I’ve been trying to… I don’t know, fill in in your absence, but I’m really crap at it.”

Newt actually smiled at him, and though it was wry and exhausted, Gally took it as a win. “Really? Hard to think of myself as a pep-talker.” He said slowly, “‘M’finding it hard to think of anything to say besides sarcastic bullshit.” 

Gally laughed then, and he couldn’t help but smile at his former friend. Even despite everything, he would still consider Newt a friend. He had never really stopped, even after everything that had happened. He was sure that didn’t go both ways, however. 

“How close were we exactly? The group of us?” Newt asked. Gally paused to think. It was a tricky question for him. There was a lot of murky clunk after the bridge.

“It’s a long, complicated story, but you were closer to the other three than to me in the end. I got… some bad shit happened with me and we were separated for a fair while. You stayed with them the whole time. Except when Minho was captured. That was when I found you guys again. But uh, you seemed pretty tight from what I saw.” He cleared his throat, “Got the feeling that you, Thomas and Minho were sorta like a package deal. Rule of threes or whatever.” 

“That’s not what the rule of threes is…”

“Okay, well, you know what I’m trying to fucking say, Newt.” He sighed, shaking his head. “You ought to talk to Minho. I’m sure he could answer your questions better.” Not that Minho had ever been the most sensitive. “But uh… look, I wasn’t always a great guy. I made a lot of mistakes. You and your friends… you did the right thing even when it fuckin’ sucked. I have to believe that if anyone’s smart enough to figure all this out, it’s you. You’re sure as hell the smartest out of us shanks, anyway.”

“Isn’t A2 meant to be a genius or something?”

“Yeah, people keep telling me that, but I’m yet to see any proof.” Gally only half joked. Thomas might be a genius, but he was also an idiot, but then, so were they all. 

Newt shot him a smile, and for a split second, he looked more like the Newt that Gally knew. The one he  _ missed.  _

“You really think I should trust these people?”

“You’re really going to trust what I say?”

Newt shrugged, but his dark eyes seemed to be logging Gally’s every movement, like he was looking for any sign that Gally was dangerous or full of shit. Gally tried hard to give none, even though he was being completely, painfully honest about everything he was saying. He supposed taking a spear to the chest had humbled him some. 

“Don’t know.” Newt admitted, “But I trust you more than everyone else. Everything you said has turned out to be true so far, and you brought me to Sonya.” 

Gally snorted, “That’s definitely a mistake, but I’ll take it.” He was fairly certain Newt would understand he was joking, they’d always had, ironically, a sort of similar sense of humour about these things. And if Newt trusted him, that could only be a good thing. He could parlay that into showing why the others should be trusted too, surely. “Yeah. I really think you should trust these people. Or at least… talk to them. You don’t have to trust them, just don’t go into it closed-off to whatever they have to say. They’ll show you themselves why you should trust them, I’m sure.”

Gally was looking forward as they walked along the beach, but he glanced over at Newt, something catching his eye. The thing he held in his hand, fiddled with, was familiar, and it took Gally a moment to place it, half obscured by Newt’s hand. 

“How’d you end up with that?” He asked, frowning. Surely Thomas must be missing it, he hadn’t parted with the thing since that day outside the WICKED building. The day Paige and Janson died.

Newt glanced up, apparently surprised that anyone was paying attention. Maybe he hadn’t even realised he was messing with it. “He gave it to me.” He said bluntly, but sort of curiously. As though he were hoping Gally might elaborate in some way that would help shed some light on something.

“Huh…” Gally could tell Newt was waiting for more, but Gally didn’t know what he had a right to say. Frankly, what he knew was based more on assumptions and unspoken understandings than what Thomas had really  _ told  _ him outright. “I’m surprised he would give it up.” He said simply.

Newt looked frustrated to have to ask for more, and for a moment, Gally couldn’t stop himself from smiling, just looking up at his friend, alive and un-cranked, his longer blonde hair whipping around his face with salty wind. He felt stupid, but he actually couldn’t really put words to, even to himself, how good it was to see Newt alive and breathing and somewhat himself again. Cured. He chose not to think about how grateful he was for that cure, about how it wouldn’t have happened at all without the organisation he hated so much. Then again, it was Thomas’ blood, Thomas’ cure. Surely for all the suffering they’d been through, Thomas should have the right to decide who got to take it. He wasn’t sure he could ever ask, but he wondered whether Thomas thought it was worth it. All that they’d gone through in exchange for Newt still living, even so distrustful and paranoid. 

“What’s that mean?” Newt finally asked. Their eyes met, and Gally realised how lucky he was to have found Newt when he did. They might’ve gone the rest of their lives believing he was dead. He might’ve gone the rest of his life never finding a friendly face or seeing Sonya. He would’ve gotten the flare again, when the serum had run out. He wouldn’t have been saved from that horrific fate. 

“He, uh, never let that thing out of his sight. He was always either wearing it or holding it.” Gally told him, hoping Thomas wouldn’t mind the confession. He was, after all, trying to help bridge the gap between them.

“Oh.” Newt nodded, frowning. “Did I mean all that…?” He asked, “What I said in the letter?” 

Gally blinked, trying to recall exactly what the Greenie had told him about the letter. That Newt would’ve followed him anywhere. Gally was pretty sure that was all Thomas had told him. It was certainly the only thing he remembered with enough certainty to talk about it. “Um… I mean, I didn’t read it.” He said finally, “But from what I know… of what’s in it, yeah. I mean, I remember I told you guys, all of you, the whole group, that I could get you into the city. But only two of you, that everyone else had to stay as sort of leverage. There wasn’t even any discussion about it. It was just a given that it’d be you and him.” He frowned, “You were already sick then, if my memory is right. You’d have to have been, based on how long it took to…” He swallowed again, “Anyway, you could’ve stayed. Kept yourself safer, away from things that’d make it worse. Not strained yourself when your body and mind was already failing. When we had serum back at the camp. But you went with him. Without question. And maybe that was because of Minho, I don’t know, but… you followed him right into hell that time.”

He went silent then, not expecting Newt to answer that comment, letting him ruminate on it for however long he needed. They walked in silence for a little longer, and Gally took a moment to just look at their surroundings. Fresh, warm air, the breeze. Gally wasn’t sure he’d ever felt anything like it before. The Glade had felt open, but he knew now it wasn’t. That they had been trapped and stuck there for so long. Sometimes, late at night, he couldn’t help but think of the Glade.  _ Really  _ think of it. Of George in those first few days, writhing and desperate, of them unable to help him. Of Ben and how he had begged as they pushed him out. How he had gotten the builders he was responsible for into the box when the grievers got loose, and how he watched a friend get snatched away by one of them on top. All the worst moments of it. The most terrifying. The one that he tried and tried to forget, but that always came to hit him right in the gut when he was least ready for it. Chuck. The little kid with rosy cheeks and curly hair, too young to be subjected to such horrors. Gally hadn’t been closest to him by any means, but he had considered the kid a friend. And he had no choice but to remember and to hate himself for what had happened to him. 

This place was different. It was quiet. It was more like the Glade was before, but without any of the monsters or any of the death. It was the nicer moments, the nights laughing by a bonfire, or doing jobs with your friends. Only, things had changed. They had been so naive back then, believing the horrors they faced there were the worst. They’d had no real idea though, what it was like on the outside, and how much more they still had to lose. How many were still terrified. Some morbid part of Gally wondered if George or Ben or Alby might’ve had blood like Thomas’. If WICKED had so blindly sacrificed people who could’ve actually helped just to study the way grief and trauma and fear affected the rest of them. He hated them so much it felt like his body couldn’t hold all the feeling. Even when he tried to be happy here, his mind wandered back to there. Wandered back to all the suffering and the build and how, no matter how hard he thought, there was no way to spin it into something good.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Alright. I’ll try to… get to know them all.” Newt said finally, staring at the water ahead of them, his expression completely unreadable.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonya reflects on her own role in her brothers' life, and tries to figure out what to do going forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aye, we've got a new POV here! The next chapter may or may not be a new POV as well, so I hope you guys enjoy! We'll go back to some of the others soon as well! 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading guys, as always, please feel free to leave me any/all feedback or comments and come yell at me on tumblr/twitter at @songbvrd <3

The breeze fluttered the fabric of her loose dress and the hammock rocked gently in the push of air. She could feel loose hair floating around her face, blown about peacefully. The sun shone down on her face, far from the burning, horrific thing she’d come to recognise it as. It smelled of sea salt and a newly burning campfire and for a split second, Sonya could almost pretend.

She could almost pretend to be a happy, normal kid. Almost pretend to have a real family, almost pretend that her hands weren’t scarred and red with death and pain, almost pretend that she couldn’t still recall, vividly as anything, the hell WICKED put them through. 

But then something would happen. A sensation. A feeling. A noise. And suddenly, the whole world would shift into focus again. Terror and paranoia would fill her, and she would be on high alert. She’d never really stopped waiting. For the click of a griever or the telltale sound of a finger on a trigger. She never escaped that fear. 

Ever since she’d met Newt again, properly, she couldn’t stop feeling like the tattoo on her neck burned her. B5. The Glue. The second in command. The exact same role Newt played in his own group. Ever since she’d found that out, the same question rolled around and around in her head. Had it been by chance? Were Newt and Sonya just truly  _ alike?  _ Or had WICKED manufactured them to play those roles? Was it all some kind of sick joke? Some kind of horrific irony? They were never even meant to meet again. The thought made her chest tremble and crack like it was made of porcelain. Would they ever truly know each other now? The Newt Gally and Minho and Frypan and Thomas had described was so different the one she saw now. 

She tried to picture them as children. She tried to picture a boy not so different to the one now, but smaller and rounder. Happier. More carefree. She tried to picture herself at his side. Smaller and sweeter and more trusting, maybe. 

She couldn’t do it. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fathom a world without the damage WICKED had done to them. A world where Newt and Sonya were a team, rather than a tragedy. 

The weight on the hammock shifted, and Sonya would’ve jumped, but she recognised everyone from the smell to the touch on her arm. 

Harriet.  _ Her  _ Harriet. 

Harriet’s arm wound around her and Sonya moved so that her head was on Harriet’s shoulder, her eyes staying closed. 

“Hello, love.” Harriet spoke in a hushed, gentle tone. Sonya had always been one to be on the softer end of Harriet’s personality. Sonya had always been her backup, her support, her calming force. 

Harriet had been her saving grace. 

She breathed her in and felt calmer. It reminded her of the Glade. The calm and the companionship of that place. The routine and order. The maze hadn’t always been good to them, but it was the closest to a home she’d ever known. Until now. 

“Hiya, Harri.” She said, her voice soft. 

“I think your accent is coming back, y’know.” Harriet said quietly, and Sonya could feel dark eyes watching her. “Do you think it’s being around him?”

Sonya nodded, “It’s like an unlocked memory. Of how I was before. I remember talking like that. I remember hearing other people talking like that. Just not… just not who specifically.”

Harriet brought a hand up to Sonya’s hair, brushing it back. Sonya let her eyes relax a little, realising she had been squeezing them closed. Harriet was trying to soothe her, she knew. After years of Sonya being the emotional backup, Harriet had stepped up to the plate. 

Sonya loved her for it. 

She maybe wasn’t a natural comforter, but she was doing her best and that alone warmed Sonya’s heart. 

“You’re back sooner than expected.” Harriet said, “I was expecting Thomas to have more to say for himself.”

Sonya shook her head, “I’m sure I could’ve asked more. I think he had plenty more to say. But I… couldn’t do it. Couldn’t sit there and drag him through it all again.”

Sonya could practically feel curiosity radiating off Harriet. The taller girl had gone into the Maze at the same time as Sonya. They hadn’t been friends at first— Harriet had been opinionated and occasionally domineering, while Sonya was more thoughtful and wanted to discuss it more. It had been a clash, maybe because Harriet saw Sonya as a threat to her leadership.

In hindsight, Sonya wasn’t really sure how their relationship shifted to friendship. It was like at some point; the two had realised that together, they made a far better leader than either of them alone. Sonya had no craving for power or recognition, she just wanted to ensure everything was good and fair for the Gladers. Their partnership sort of slowly became a friendship, she supposed, and the two of them began to talk more about things other than their jobs and thoughts on the Glade.

At some point; they actually bonded. Sonya learned Harriet was funny and imaginative. Harriet told Sonya she was quick witted and compassionate. More Gladers turned up, and they had it down to a fine art. How they talked to people, how they trained them. Until Aris showed up, that was. But then Aris quickly became a third friend in their little group, from a pair to a trio. 

Looking back, Sonya was sure she’d been in love with Harriet for years at that point. The way her hair shon in the sun. The way her eyes seemed to sparkle when she grinned really brightly. She was beautiful. Full of fire and passion and untamed feeling. Sonya couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone else. 

She was fairly certain she saw that same thing on Thomas when he described Newt. 

“What do you mean?” Harriet finally asked, tipping her head. 

Sonya looked around, making sure no one else but her girlfriend would hear her. She could see Thomas, actually. He’d wandered back out, but looked like he wouldn’t last long. He looked sad and empty and Sonya wondered how long he could seriously stand with so much pressure heavy on his shoulders. It was like he felt a responsibility to be fine for everybody else’s sake. Or maybe he simply couldn’t be alone. Sonya glanced at Harriet, and thought that if it was her in his position, she’d never stop crying. Never stop melting down. 

“Can’t you see it?” Sonya asked softly, looking back at Thomas. Harriet followed her gaze, and frowned at Thomas, as if she was trying to figure it out. 

“No? What am I seeing?” She frowned, “I mean, he’s been dragged to hell and back, is that it? You knew that going in there talking to him…”

“No, it isn’t that.” She paused, unsure whether she should say it. “He loves him.”

Harriet blinked, “Yeah, I know. Him and Newt and Minho are like you, me and Aris.”

Sonya sighed, nodding. “Yeah, Harri. Exactly. Think about that.”

Another few moments passed uninterrupted. Sonya waited for Harriet to click. Sonya had always been more adept with feelings than Harriet, who was a fantastic leader, but not always the most sensitive. But she knew her girlfriend would get there eventually. 

“Oh.” Harriet blinked, “Oh! Oh. Oh, poor thing.”

“Yeah.” Sonya nodded. “As soon as he started talking about Newt, I could hear it. Then the way he was describing him…” She shook her head. It was too awful. Too sad. And it wasn’t like she could tell Newt, or really do anything to help. She barely knew him  _ herself _ , and she was sure Newt would neither appreciate nor trust her butting into his relationship with Thomas that way. Or probably his relationships with anyone. 

“I knew they were close,” Harriet said quietly, “When you and Aris got taken, they were together all the time. Seemed to mostly keep to themselves too. But honestly, I didn’t realise… I always sort of thought maybe him and Brenda… Or him and Teresa.” She frowned. “I don’t remember ever really seeing them apart during that time.” She admitted. “Did he actually tell you, or…?”

“No,” Sonya admitted quietly, meeting Harriet’s concerned eyes, “No, no, he didn’t. But you’d have thought so too if you heard it, Harri. He was clearly upset as soon as we started talking, but when… when he started talking about Newt getting the Flare, he started crying and…” She shook her head. “I got it. Why everyone kept telling me to talk to Thomas. They all love him, that’s obvious, but not like Thomas does… You can see it on his face…”

Harriet pulled Sonya into a tighter hug. “You look a lot like him, y’know.” The brunette said quietly, “Newt. I never noticed before, but I wasn’t looking for it. Something about your eyes, maybe. Other things too, but your eyes…” She was gazing wistfully at Sonya, whose heard only seemed to flutter in response.

“I  _ was  _ a lot like him too apparently. A5 and B5… The Glue… The Second in Command.” Sonya frowned up at her girlfriend, and the one horrific thought she couldn’t escape hit her like a ton of bricks all over again. “Harri… They did this to him because of me, didn’t they?” 

From the look on Harriet’s face, she’d already considered this. Of course she had. Of course she hadn’t said it aloud. She must’ve known it would crush Sonya to hear it. 

“Nobody is to blame here except WICKED.” She said softly. “Aris worked for them too, don’t forget, and he sent himself in to help us, just like Thomas. We don’t blame either of them… Why would you blame yourself for something that happened when you were an infant? A trick of biology you could never have known about or controlled?”

“Because that random trick of biology is the reason he suffered. The reason he was put in that maze, the reason he watched his friends die, the reason he got the Flare and got stabbed and got taken by WICKED  _ again _ ! It’s because of me, Harri.” 

Harriet took a deep, long breath. “I’ve thought about this already, and I wasn’t ever going to say it, except…” She paused. “That thought goes both ways. If he got left out in the Flare and you got taken, even if you didn’t get taken, he would still have gotten sick. Sure, WICKED wouldn’t have tortured him, but he also wouldn’t have lived to age seven.” 

Sonya squeezed her eyes shut. That thought was somehow no better. She understood sharply what it must be like to be the  _ Leader.  _ She was the Second in Command, but that wasn’t the same. Any decision Harriet or Thomas had made had direct consequences. Lives directly on their hands. Aris and Thomas had helped to construct the torture they were  _ still  _ healing from. Minho had been the one running to get Newt’s serum and not getting back in time. Maybe they were all doomed to live in crushing, all consuming guilt for as long as their immune hearts kept beating. 

“So… what? I should be happy he got tortured for years and had his memory erased twice because of me? What if… what if it would’ve been better if he hadn’t…?”

“Sonya, love, that’s not all there is. His life isn’t over. He’s here now, safe, cured, with you and his friends. What happened isn’t fair, you’re right, but it isn’t the end either.”

Sonya considered this, her eyes staring off into the distance. She understood what her girlfriend was trying to suggest, that there was still time, that they could still have a happy ending. But Sonya was afraid that would never happen, afraid that they were just stuck, that something would always go wrong, no matter how much they all deserved peace. She had come so close to losing Newt and she hadn’t even known he was her brother. Maybe she already had lost him, she couldn’t recall ever seeing him that way, couldn’t recall what it must’ve been like to have a brother like that. From what little Newt had been able to tell her, the two of them had supposedly been very close before, and Newt had been somewhat known for breaking into her barracks to see her, even after they were separated. Newt supposedly didn’t remember any of it either, but had been told. The idea of having a brother who had loved her so much ached, something she wasn’t sure she would ever have again. 

She opened her mouth to speak again, but was cut off by Aris’s voice as he ran towards them. “Son, Harri, the sun is starting to set and then there’s gonna be a bonfire. Do you want to come watch?”

Sonya didn’t, as it happened. She didn’t want to go and pretend to be fine when she wasn’t. She had been happy. Actually happy when she got here. Bad things had happened, obviously, and there was no undoing that damage, but her two favourite people had made it there alive. Aris and Harriet were still breathing and themselves, and for her, that had been it. Until all of this. And now she had become a part of the complicated relationships that had come from Maze A without even realising it. She had always felt for them, but their own situation had been somewhat different.

Harriet glanced at her, as if letting her know that it was up to her. Her decision whether she wanted to go. Sonya managed a nod, and the two got up off the hammock, joining Aris and making their way down towards the water. She glanced around as she walked, looking for Newt. She realised that she couldn’t see him, though Thomas, Minho and Frypan were all in the area. Gally was gone though, so it was possible he was off with the other Glader somewhere. Either way, Sonya felt like she couldn’t relax now. Like she should be watching out for him, trying to get something, anything, to help. 

She was all the way down to the edge of the wet sand when something occurred to her. She turned on her heel, heading back towards the atrium of the camp where Thomas sat, looking like he was there in body only, his mind a million years away. 

Sonya tapped his shoulder thoughtlessly, leaning down a little to be heard. “Come watch the sunset with us.”

He seemed startled, which she hadn’t really thought of, but she didn’t much want to change her mind. She  _ liked  _ Thomas, and what was more, she felt like he could probably use all the friendship and support he could get. He was clearly overcome with guilt about it all, and Sonya figured if anyone would be good at helping him alleviate any of that pressure, it would be her. She couldn’t remember it, but she was the direct relation to Newt. If he couldn’t forgive Thomas, maybe Sonya could go some small way to doing it on his behalf. 

“Um…” He followed her gaze to Aris and Harriet, and Sonya realised he was probably checking to see if Newt was there. Most likely (and very fairly) avoiding him. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. ‘Course.” She looked up, realising she’d caught both Minho’s and Frypan’s attention also. “You guys can come too. It’s nothing special, we’re just going to hang out and watch the sunset. But, y’know, us Gladers have got to stick together and all that, eh?” 

Minho and Thomas exchanged a look Sonya didn’t understand, but she didn’t budge, nor did she let her expression slip. Grinning and playing nice was the last thing she felt like doing, but helping Thomas in some small way felt real and practicable. She needed that. 

“You’re so like him.” Minho’s voice was so soft it took Sonya a moment to figure out what he’d said. Sonya’s smile faltered, and she felt a moment of longing. Was she? She wished she knew. She wished she had gotten to know the real him better. “We’ll come.” Minho said, speaking for the other two with such ease.

Their dynamics were interesting, Sonya decided, putting more effort into noticing them, into figuring them out. Before, she cared, but they were really just the other Gladers. Now they were the Gladers who cared so deeply for her brother, now they were bound in a mutual searing grief. 

She stood straight again and the three boys stood to follow. She plopped down in the sand beside Harriet, and Thomas sat beside her, Minho beside him, Frypan beside Aris. The group of them were in a line on the sand, and a moment of silence fell over the lot of them. A moment of comfortable peace. 

“Nice not to have the sun trying to kill us,” Frypan joked. There was a moment of awkward silence, before the group of them began to laugh. They were what was left of the stupid famous Maze Trials, broken and struggling though they were. Sonya couldn’t speak for the rest of them, but she didn’t feel special. 

Harriet spoke up next, “What hasn’t tried to kill us at this point, really?”

“I was going to say Thomas and I, but I s’pose technically that isn’t true.” On another other day, at any other moment, Aris’ joke might not slide. But they were all tired, and completely burned out on grief and worry. That day, specifically, the joke only made the group laugh harder. 

“Weren’t you guys meant to kill me in general?” Thomas asked, glancing at Sonya to his right. “Are you finally fulfilling your WICKED destiny?”

“Absolutely,” Sonya answered casually, “Isn’t that what we all do? Take our marks to look at a bloody pretty pink sunset before getting rid of ‘em?”

When she glanced around at them, she figured the whole group of them had to range in age from eighteen to twenty-one (though who would really know?). Despite their young ages, Sonya thought they all looked haunted. Younger with smiles on their faces and laughs in their voices, but still weary and ancient. Exhausted. Diminished. Burned out. Thomas had had dark circles around his eyes since the Last City fell. Minho sometimes blinked too hard, like he was trying to will tiredness from his eyes. Frypan would yawn too often. And while they finally had peace, physically, Sonya could see the emptiness. The hollow, crushing pain of how they lived. 

“Are you going to wine and dine me before you kill me then?” Thomas asked. The group was laughing again, and it was an odd thing. To try to be human again.

No matter how broken and empty and defeated the world outside would seem, time just limped on. The world didn’t stop. The rain fell, the wind blew and the sun rose. No matter how much it hurt them. 

“What’s all this then?” The familiar voice saw the humour of the moment die a slow and painful death. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minho goes to a Glader group meeting to discuss everything.
> 
> He talks to an old friend, of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayeee a new POV, friends!! I won't lie, I was a little nervous about this one, because I've never written for Minho before, but I hope you guys like the way I'm writing him!
> 
> As always, please feel free to leave any/all comments and feel free to come yell at me on twitter/tumblr @songbvrd <3

He awoke with a start, his expression sharp and afraid. Nightmares had become commonplace, it was true, but there was no preparing for the really bad ones. The ones where he was running. Pushing himself as fast and as far as he could go and still not being fast enough.

The ones where he came back to find Newt’s body cold and lifeless, and Thomas completely gone.

On the worst nights, he would find both of their bodies. On the worst nights, he had lost them both. His two best friends in the world, the two people who’d risked absolutely everything to try to get him back.

The words would repeat in his head over and over like ice.  _ We save Minho, no matter the cost.  _ Thomas had told Minho, how Newt had wanted to save him more than anything. How he had been willing to pay the ultimate price. The biggest one. It was one thing to die, Minho thought. Quick and done. But what Newt had paid was a greater price. He’d lost his sanity. His control. His sense of self. And he’d done it willingly. For him.

On mornings like these, Minho would sometimes imagine himself asking Teresa. Maybe he would have, had he known Newt was ill before they rescued him. He would imagine what he would say to her. Imagine how he would yell and blame her for it all. All that suffering. He had hated her before, but nothing compared to how much he’d hated her since.

_ You knew.  _ He would think,  _ You never lost your memories at all. You knew Newt wasn’t immune. You knew when you called WICKED on us. If you’d let us go, the three of us would be in paradise together. He never would’ve gotten infected. There was no cure! Even if Thomas’ blood worked, it was finite! It wouldn’t save the world! Only the chosen few WICKED thought were worth saving. Would you exchange Thomas for them? For Janson or Paige?  _

And he’d never get an answer. He knew what she would say anyway. The same shit she’d said to him in that clinic. That he was helping to save people. That they were alive because of him. It was bullshit, Minho knew. On some deep, ingrained level, Minho knew there was no cure. No hope. No salvation. There was only a new generation, and protecting them. 

It had all been so worth it to her, he knew. He had heard her talk about it enough when he was tortured for them to try to make a cure out of him. The grand notion of saving everybody.

As if there was anything left to be saved. As if it wasn’t a manmade virus to begin with. Minho didn’t remember everything about his time there, some of it was hazy and painful to recall, but he remembered that. Remembered how the anger had burned in his brain. How furious and sorrowful and hollow he had felt when he realised WICKED started the very thing they were now torturing him to fix. There was nothing good or noble about WICKED. It was only themselves they were trying to save. 

He had no time or sympathy for Teresa’s determination to save the world, and even now, he was haunted by his own hate. By what she had done to him. By what she had caused to happen to Newt. By how she had manipulated Thomas. He could still hear her words, burned into his brain forever.  _ ‘Come back to me’.  _ Newt was dying, Thomas being forced to choose between letting himself die at the hands of his crank best friend or killing him himself, and Teresa was calling Thomas back to her, like a child called home at curfew. 

He hated her so much it stung. But maybe hate was an easier emotion to feel than all the others. Anger and hate felt… real. Actionable. The deep, aching, gut-wrenching sorrow he would feel if his anger slipped away was too much. How could he ever live with himself? The two times in his life he had run desperately to try to save his own best friend. One time he had been fast enough. One time he hadn’t. 

He still remembered that day so clearly. The two of them, Minho trying desperately hard to keep Newt awake, scared of what would happen if he fell asleep. Basically propping up his best friend’s weight. By that point, they had been in there a long time together, and were about as close as he ever was to anyone. Newt and he were very different. Newt was good with words where Minho often struggled to express himself. Newt was measured where he was reckless. Calm where he was impassioned. They had always balanced each other out well, and Minho thought Newt brought out the best in him. And that day, Minho was terrified he lost Newt. He had been so lucky, so grateful, that he survived, even with that limp.

The second time had been different. It had come on so quickly. Minho had no idea that Newt was even able to be affected by it. It seemed like such a cruelty, to put him through the maze and the scorch, only to get sick regardless. The second time, Minho had been so relieved when he saw Thomas and Newt. It had felt like a dream, the two of them sprinting towards him and throwing their arms around him. It had felt like  _ home.  _ The two of them, they were home. They were everything to him. Absolutely everything. 

He felt so responsible for the horrible shot they two had endured that day. If not for him, they would’ve long been in paradise again. And so Minho existed, blaming either himself or Teresa from day to day, though  _ ‘both’  _ was really the more accurate feeling he had. 

That hadn't been improved any by them getting Newt back. Sure, he had survived, but he had suffered. And now, he had lost himself all over again. Lost everything to WICKED, over and over. To the virus they released in the first instance, and their hunt for immune kids, to the maze, to the virus as it affected him… and now this. Taken away from him again. 

And Thomas… all that pressure and guilt. He was surprised it hadn’t overwhelmed him yet. That he was still standing and functioning as well as he was. He had always been resilient and strong, but Minho honestly wasn't sure how much strength he could possibly still have. 

He was worried about all of his friends though, and the more he thought about it, the more it would overwhelm him too. That was why he let himself focus on anger more. Anger was more sustainable for him than sadness.

“You coming?” The head that poked into his tent wasn’t unexpected, and Minho managed a nod. He knew Gally was coming to get him this morning, they’d discussed it briefly the previous night, he knew the general gist of what he was about to walk into.

He got to his feet, somewhat reluctantly, tearing himself out of his thoughts, and making his way out to follow Gally to wherever their group were meeting to talk.

When he got inside the hut, their makeshift meeting place for this venture, he glanced around the group. Thomas sat backwards on a chair, his eyes fixed on the ground, probably off somewhere in his own world, as he often was lately.

Gally had moved to stand beside him, his arms folded, authoritative as ever. Scattered around the room where Sonya and Harriet, sitting together on the floor, near the back of the canvas covering of the hut. Frypan sat a little to the right of him, too. Brenda was there as well, though if this was about what he thought it was, he wasn’t entirely sure why she would be there. Her and Aris were both sitting opposite Sonya and Harriet on the other wall of the tent, legs stretched out in front of them. Minho made his way to Frypan and sat by his side. He wondered if there was anyone else who should be there, directly, but of the original two mazes, this was all there was. This was them. 

Newt was notably absent, but that was no great surprise, given the context of the meeting. Minho took a second to look around the room, and think specifically about all the people that were  _ supposed  _ to be there. Winston. Ben. Alby. Zart. He could list off names forever and never get done listening people. But there was already a giant rock outside for that, etched with familiar names. Newt’s was on there, and maybe he shouldn’t have been anymore, but it still felt like  _ their  _ Newt was gone. At least to Minho. It was  _ their  _ Newt that was up on that stone, not this one. The one that WICKED had twisted him into. 

He didn’t want to be angry at that. It wasn’t fair to Newt, none of this was his fault. But he felt so angry. He didn’t want to sit around and look at what was left of his best friend. He knew that Thomas and Newt had a different relationship again, that Gally and Newt did, all of the people in this room (to some extent). But he and Newt had a different history again. Everything the two of them had been through together. He loved Thomas, and the three of them were a trio, they were meant to be all three of them, but it wasn’t the same. It just wasn’t. And Minho was trying not to be angry. He was trying not to lash out at the people left standing, because despite his frustration and anger and sorrow, he knew they didn’t deserve it.

Besides, how could he punish any of them for what had happened when he still felt so resolutely like it was all his fault. If they hadn’t come for him, it wouldn’t have mattered. If they hadn’t come for him, they’d both be fine. 

“Alright, you all know why we’re here.” Gally began, and Minho felt some weird deja vu to the Glade. Only, it was all wrong. Their two leaders were missing. Gally had always been one of the most talkative and animated at these things, and Alby and Newt had always been more quiet and reserved, but their presence had always been there. The ones entrusted with the place. The ones they knew would do their best to look after them. Newt would meet him outside the maze every morning and every afternoon. Their presence was always there. Now, a meeting led by Gally and Thomas? It only reminded him how wrong it all felt. 

“Thomas remembered something. From before the maze. And if he can, that means we all can.” Gally went on. “So we’ve been trying to figure out how we do that. What it would look like if we could find a way to remember.” He was speaking to the whole room, like he used to do back in the Glade, and even though Minho really liked Gally, and was glad to have an old friend back and himself again, part of him wanted to roll his eyes. Maybe it was a force of habit. Maybe it was just because Minho was already so annoyed, already struggling to deal with his overwhelming feelings about all of this.

“I thought you guys didn’t want your old memories back.” Sonya said flatly, her brows raised as she eyed the two boys up the front. Everyone else was sitting on the ground, so they effectively had the floor. 

“We didn’t.” Gally answered casually, raising one shoulder in a shrug. “But that was before we realised we all knew each other before. And before we found out that Newt knows some of it. We can’t combat any of that without knowing ourselves.”

He looked around the room, waiting for somebody to argue. Sonya and Harriet had already elected to have their memories returned, and they now knew that what they had been given was manipulated, not their true, raw memories. He knew the four of them left from Maze A, regardless of whether they wanted their memories, would commit to trying to get them back because they loved Newt. Which left Aris. He had no idea where Aris stood on this, but he was curious. He waited for anyone to argue, for anyone to say anything real. It seemed like they were all treading so carefully. But Minho wasn’t the one to argue, not about this. 

Minho took a deep breath, and heard Brenda speak up. “So how would you do it? How do you remember?”

Thomas cleared his throat and spoke up, but it sounded like he might not have spoken since waking up, because his voice was croaky and forced, “I remembered something else about before.” He explained, “Before the Maze, we all got… chips implanted. You all know about this, most of us got ‘em removed. But I remember now. We had a surgery to have them put in. Mine and Teresa’s -- and I assume yours and Rachel’s --” he addressed Aris, “worked a bit differently. I remember her once telling me that you had to feel around in your brain for something that felt like a switch, and then flip it. I don’t think the memories are like that exactly, a switch, but I think that same principle applies. That we have to… almost search. It sounds weird, but when you start really trying, really thinking about it, you’ll see what I mean. I’ve only gotten little tiny bits and pieces. Things here and there. But I think… if I push more, I’ll find more. I don’t think it’s ever gonna be a flood, but… A trickle is something.” 

Harriet spoke next, and she sounded… skeptical, at best. “You’re telling us to just  _ think really hard?  _ Don’t you think we all did that? Like, when we first woke up with no memories?”

“Of course.” Gally nodded, “We all did. But it might be the way we all go about it. Like the way we approach trying to remember. Trying to find those specific things. Like feeling around in your brain.”

“And have you had any success with it? Or only Thomas?” Aris spoke now. None of them seemed particularly convinced, truthfully, not even Thomas or Gally themselves. Minho wasn’t, but he would try himself. He would do what he had to do. He would try not to get frustrated and impatient.

“Not yet.” Gally admitted. “Look, I’m not asking you guys to do somethin’ crazy here, I’m not sure what the push back is. I’m just suggesting there might be a better way for us to try to get our memories back. The WICKED compound is gone, and while that’s a relief, they’re still out there somewhere, because they took him  _ again. _ Even after the Last City fell. If we can remember, we have a better chance of fighting if… if it ever comes to that.” He said seriously, “And even if it doesn’t… don’t you guys want to know? Now that we know WICKED had us for  _ years  _ before, don’t you want to remember what they did to us?” Gally’s frustration was tangible, unavoidable, palpable. “Sonya, don’t you want to remember your brother?” This was a more emotional plea, and the whole room turned to the blonde, whose dark eyes were fixed on the ground. 

She didn’t always look like Newt. Sometimes, Minho knew exactly how none of them had placed the familial resemblance. But every now and then, just for a moment, she and Newt were so similar it hurt to look at her. That moment was one of those times.

“Of course I want to remember,” She said softly. “I just… don’t want to get my hopes up that I ever will.” She sounded genuinely sad, and Minho felt a rush of sympathy for her. He barely knew her, but he couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for her. He knew she was trying to get to know them all more now. She’d spoken to him a bit, but not a lot. He imagined she’d have more questions as she came to terms with it all. As she learned more maybe too. 

“There’s one more thing.” Thomas said slowly. Even Minho paid more attention now-- he didn’t remember Thomas mentioning anything else to him. “Every memory I’ve gotten back. It’s… hurt. It felt like… I don’t know. A really bad headache. Like I’m straining something in my head trying to get to it. I think maybe that’s why we’ve all tried but never gotten anywhere. Something about our… something about the Swipe. Causing us headaches if we get too close to make us turn back.” He frowned, “Don’t turn back.”

Silence fell over the group. Surely everyone in this room was bonded by fire at this point. All the awful things they’d been through. The mazes. The scorch. For he, Sonya and Aris, the time in the WICKED labs. For the rest of them, the rescue missions and six months of waiting and fear. Surely for them, some bad headaches for nothing.

But it wasn’t really about the headaches, Minho knew. It was about what this meant.

They were free. Sure, they’d lost a fuckload, but they were free. And now… they weren’t. Now, the fighting was back. It was a different kind of fighting, but having Newt back, unaware and tortured once more just brought them all back into that place. Into that awful mindset. Back into hell.

“What did you remember?”

Of course it was Sonya who wanted to know. She had every right to want to know. Maybe more than any of them. Then again, that was hard to put a proper value to. 

“Um…” Thomas began, and those that were in Maze A already knew. They knew because they’d been there when he got that memory back. “I remembered why I sent myself into the maze.” He paused, glancing at Aris. “I remembered how I convinced Teresa, and then Teresa and I convinced you and Rachel. We all sent ourselves in because we couldn’t take watching our friends suffer and die anymore.” He paused, “But… more specifically, I decided to send myself -- and I guess you too, Aris -- into the maze because I saw Newt injure his leg. And I just…”

“I get it.” She said quickly, stopping him dead in his tracks. “You don’t have to elaborate.”

The room was hushed again, and Minho glanced at Sonya. Had she worked it out so quickly? It had taken Minho a helluva lot longer to place their relationship than it had her, obviously. Maybe on some level, she really did still know her brother. Or maybe she was just… empathetic. Maybe girls were better at this stuff. 

“So we’re all going to try, right?” Gally pushed forward, but his voice was softer now. He had a tendency to steamroll people in pursuit of what he thought was right or best, but he was clearly trying hard to be sensitive about this. Still, without Newt, who was the voice of reason? The calming one? Sonya, probably. But that wasn’t right either. 

Minho had to squash down the rising feelings of anger and frustration once more, forcing himself to be calmer for the sake of his friends. They were all struggling. He had to try. But between their Gladers, him, Thomas, Gally and Frypan, none of them came close to filling the thoughtful and wisecracking gap that Newt had left. 

“Yeah.” Minho spoke up. “I’m going to try.”

Sonya and Aris both looked at him. They’d gotten some shitty  _ special bonding time  _ at WICKED, so he knew them a little better than he knew Harriet and Brenda. He liked them all well enough though.

There was a small chorus of ‘me too’s, starting with Frypan and ending with Aris. Some seemed more eager than others, but ultimately, no one there had reason to refuse. They were in it together now, no matter what that meant. Minho had already made his peace with that a long time ago. 

He got to his feet, planning to spend his time fishing or gathering or something productive, when he felt someone grab his arm. He turned, somewhat unsurprised by the familiar pair of brown eyes that stared up at him. 

“Can we…?” 

Minho nodded, gesturing for her to lead the way to wherever she wanted to go. It turned out they didn’t go far, probably just enough that they had some privacy. 

“I’m sorry, this is an awkward question to ask,” She began, but Minho waved it off. He was nearly impossible to make uncomfortable, and besides, how much weirder could any of this get? If  _ their  _ Newt had any idea how many people were stuck talking, thinking and obsessing him, he’d absolutely loathe it. He never wanted to be the focus of the attention. He liked to stand back and listen, to help behind the scenes. 

“Thomas and Newt… were they…?”

Ah, yes. A fair question in Minho’s opinion. 

“No.” Minho said slowly, shaking his head. “But they…” He paused, trying to find the right words. This shit wasn’t his strong suit. He wasn’t the wordsmith. He was the braun. He was perfectly content being the braun. He was good at it too. Tactically smart, but maybe not so much linguistically. 

“Did Newt love him too?” She asked.

So she  _ had  _ caught on about Thomas then. Minho couldn’t answer with certainty, Neither had ever come to him to lay their feelings out— they didn’t have the time or energy for things like that with the way they grew up. With the way they’d had to fight every waking moment. 

“I can’t say for sure.” Minho said slowly, staring at the ground as he thought, trying to place his words carefully and not be reckless about such an important topic. “But… I think so. I don’t want to say yes and be wrong and I don’t want to speak for him when he isn’t here. Or… not really, anyway. But… yes, I think he did.”

“How horrible.” She said slowly. Minho knew why it was horrible, of course, he wasn’t stupid, he understood the grief of it all. But something in the way she said it gave him pause. He waited, hoping she’d elaborate. “I just can’t think of anything worse. They were both just children in the maze, really. Thomas sent himself in to try to help Newt… they must have been close before. Maybe he already loved him. How long did they spend together not even remembering that? That they knew before? That Thomas gave up his life to go into the maze and try to get Newt out… Then to escape with your lives and have a chance, only to find out he’s not immune after all.” She shook her head, “To be the one who… who has to…” Her eyes were wet, “To watch the life drain out of him… To think you’ll have to live the whole rest of your life living with having killed the love of your life and then have them come back to you, but… not knowing or trusting you?” She shook her head, “It’s like a Greek tragedy. And to think they might not even have known they loved each other in all of that. I can’t think of a heartache worse.”

Minho knew all of this information objectively. He’d thought about it before, felt horribly sad about it before. But the way she laid it all out, sounded so emotional and empathetic about it was enough to make it all feel really real in his mind. 

The two had been orbiting around each other forever, desperately trying to protect each other. 

No wonder Thomas had fallen apart when he had ultimately lost Newt. 

“I’m their best friend and I don’t know how to help.” The words left Minho without his consent, “I’m not the… I’m not the sensitive shank, y’know? That was Newt. Newt was the one people came to for support or encouragement or just… insight. And Thomas, Thomas was the leader. He was the rally-er. He had a way of making us all want to fight, even when we had nothing left to give. I… I was the protector. Physically, I would lead or protect or be the one to push forward. But there’s no… there’s no shuck point to that here and I don’t know how to help. It’s all so fractured. I can’t stand to see the shanks like this.” He didn’t know how to explain, so he tried to joke off some of his words, though the emotion bled through no matter how hard he tried, no matter how awkward he felt. 

She shrugged, “I wish I knew how to help.” She said slowly, “I keep running ‘round in circles with myself trying to figure out what I can do. But I have no real sway with Newt and… I don’t know if Thomas even trusts me really. Or what I’d say to him if he actually did.”

Minho nodded, “That’s why everyone’s freaking I think. None of us have a damn clue what to do.”

A long pause. “Can I ask you something?”

Minho nodded once more. “Sure. Shoot.”

“What about you?”

Minho blinked, obviously confused. “What about me?”

“How are you coping…?” She said quietly, “It seems like a lot of people really loved him a lot. And that’s really nice, but it also makes me concerned about the lot of you. I see Gally trying to take charge, and Thomas… zoning out and Frypan trying to stay quiet, but I haven’t figured you out yet. Are you okay…? I know you’re really close to Thomas and Newt… or…” 

“ _ Were _ close to them?” He filled in, noting the past tense of it all. His relationship with Newt was in the past tense, even after so many years of being friends. So many years of Newt being there to crack jokes as the walls closed. So many years of the two of them eating dinner side by side. Minho remembered only just barely getting himself and Newt back through those walls after Newt jumped. He remembered the look on Newt’s face when they had found each other again inside WICKED’s labs. He remembered the three of them, jumping out of a building together like the truth ride-or-die friends they were. Was all that really, honestly, completely gone.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“How am I coping?” Minho asked. 

How was he coping? He wanted to scream until there was no breath left in his lungs. He wanted to get his hands on any person left with a beating heart who had done this to them and make them pay for it. He wanted to get back into that Maze and tear it apart piece by piece for all that it had taken from them. He would tear what was left of that City to the ground to find whoever had done this to Newt.  _ Again.  _ He wanted to scream and fight and yell and punch because if he didn't, the sadness was eventually going to pull him under, and he couldn't handle that.

“I’m fine.” Minho said, shrugging as casually as he could. She really was just like Newt. This was the kind of thing he would ask of them. He was always the one to notice everyone. To take the time to make sure people were okay, in whatever way he could. Her being so similar only made it hurt more. “I appreciate you asking, really, but I’m fine.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt and Thomas have a raw conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is ... angsty. That's all. Just a fair warning.
> 
> As always, please feel free to leave me any/all feedback or come hang with me on tumblr/twitter at @songbvrd! 
> 
> (Also, thank you all so much for your kind comments and for reading along! It really inspires me to write more and I really appreciate it!)

Newt gasped deeply, breathing air into his lungs until they felt full. He was trying to remind himself that he was alive. Actually, properly alive and cured. He raised his forearms in front of himself, dark eyes scanning them up and down, looking for signs of the permeating poison in his veins. They were fading. Every day they faded.

He didn’t want the scars to fade. Or, he did, but he didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust that he would really stay safe now. He didn’t trust that he was free. He didn’t trust these people and he didn’t trust this camp. 

He didn’t want to owe these people.

He was sick of expectant eyes, rimmed with tears. Sick of feeling guilty for torture that was inflicted upon _him._ Sick of the way everyone always seemed to be waiting on him. Waiting on him to remember or to fight with them. 

He wanted to know Sonya, and Gally had saved his life, really. Brenda too. But the rest of them… If Newt was honest, he had no interest. He didn’t want to know Minho or Frypan, and he actively disliked Thomas. Or at least distrusted him. The angry, red scar on his chest ensured that. 

He didn’t like the way they all hovered around Thomas, as though Newt were the dangerous one, even though it had been Thomas who’d stabbed him. He didn’t like the letter, and the vulnerability he didn’t remember offering. These people had so much of him that he never consciously chose to give, and it seemed unfair.

How was he supposed to trust any of that? How was he supposed to trust these people when they wanted him to trust someone who had stabbed him. 

It wasn’t that he was blind either. Newt saw the way that Thomas and the others looked at him. The obvious concern, the desire to help. He just didn’t like it.

The unfortunate truth was that Newt knew very little about himself. He was genial, if that letter was anything to go by. He’d been told multiple times he was the ‘Glade Mother’. Whatever the hell that meant. And if their surprise and hurt at his harshness was anything to go by, he wasn’t anywhere near as harsh in the past. But this wasn’t the past and they were just strangers expecting too much of him. 

If anything, the expectation of how he was meant to be only bothered him more. Only made him harsher. He wasn’t their Newt, obviously. He didn’t know how to be, and he hated the _guilt_ of knowing he wasn’t. 

He was playing his cards close to his chest, it was true. He’d kept it to himself some of what he knew through WICKED. He hadn’t mentioned, for instance, that he had seen some other footage of them as children. Seen them running off in the middle of the nights. Seen the group of them as genuine, real friends. But he didn’t want to give that information away, because he seemed to be the only one of them who really knew anything about their lives before the Maze, and frankly, what he did know didn’t make him overly eager to trust any of them. Thomas, at least, had worked for WICKED. Had put them in the Maze. Maybe the other version of him had been willing to forgive that, but Newt, as he was now, didn’t _know_ Thomas. What he did know was that this boy had been his friend, had chosen to put them in the Maze, prepped them for it even. That he had watched them there for years. That he had stabbed Newt. None of what he knew made him eager to trust, especially considering the way everyone else seemed to try to be forcing him to.

He did what he’d done every morning since he woke up here. He unfurled the note, written in his own hand (and he had checked), and read it all the way through, trying to make sense of any of it. Of what the words meant and why he’d written them. He racked his brain for the memories. 

It made his heart ache. 

Not because of any emotion within the letter directed at Thomas. He didn’t remember the boy, and that was the least of his concerns. No, what hurt was what Newt had apparently feared most. Forgetting. Losing himself. Exactly what had happened, evidently.

Despite the words on the page, Newt had no idea who Alby, Chuck or Winston were. He had no idea what the sun looked like as it fell over the Glade. He didn’t remember Frypan’s stew. He didn’t remember Thomas running out from the Box, nor did he remember ever being willing to follow anyone anywhere, let alone this boy. 

He was aware it was probably his own stubbornness that he was taking out on Thomas. His own resentment of being pushed into this whole thing he had no memory of. 

But he had lost everything. Things that clearly meant a lot to him. He didn’t even know exactly what he’d lost, because how could he? All he knew he was meant to love these people. He was meant to be one of them, and instead, he felt like an outsider. The nightmare they couldn’t ignore, the burden to be looked after. To be worried about. Newt didn’t know much about who he was before, but he knew enough to know he hated being looked at like that. With pity and concern and sadness. He couldn’t fix it. Not for himself or for them.

When he left the little canvas tent he’d been designated, he knew what he’d be walking into. More awkwardness, more pressure. More of resenting being an outsider, but also resenting the pressure to be one of them. More exchanged glances he didn’t understand. 

And there it was.

He saw them all sitting casually around on the stairs of their little amphitheatre. They looked like a proper community. A family. 

Minho commanded the attention of the group, an arm sling dramatically around Thomas and Frypan each, telling some story. Sonya sat between Harriet’s legs, with Harriet’s arms around her. Gally stretched out over several levels of steps, arms behind his head, laughing. Brenda sat at his side, her eyes locked on Gallt as he laughed. Aris sat right at the peak of the group, smiling along.

Newt would only ruin their mood by joining. He might have been one of them once, but he wasn’t now. Obviously. 

So instead of going to them, he found his way instead to a group of people he didn’t know, offering to help with jobs around the camp. People had been wary of him, like they were afraid he’d still turn crank and kill them or something, and while it bothered Newt, he had no right to judge. He thought he might still go crank too. 

He spent much of the morning helping people gather food, quietly avoiding the people who seemed most invested in him personally. 

It was weirdly nice, actually. Quiet and fulfilling in a way he wasn’t used to. Just having a purpose he was actually able to fulfil. He couldn’t let anyone down doing this. Couldn’t hurt anyone. He was just helping the community he was apparently stuck with now. At least he wouldn’t feel so much like a burden on them this way. These strangers who looked at him with such concern and pity. 

By the time lunch rolled around, Newt was actually dreading returning to the central part of the community. He wouldn’t be able to avoid them then. In the week or so that he’d been there, he’d learned better than to attempt to avoid them all the time. It only made it worse when one of them looked for him later. He felt like an infant being babysat.

Still, when he returned, the group had dispersed, and Thomas sat alone on the highest step of the circle, seemingly lost in thought.

He’d promised Gally he’d try…

Newt made his way over awkwardly, shoving his hands in the pockets of his ill-fitting pants as he did. He was lucky to have new clothes at all, but all the generosity only made him feel weird and out of place, so he never quite knew how to handle it. 

“Hey,” He began. 

Thomas jumped, and Newt realised he’d been completely zoned out sitting there, clearly hadn’t even seen anyone else approaching. 

“Sorry.” He added quickly, trying to keep things as civil as possible. He’d promised he’d try.

“Oh.” Thomas shifted awkwardly, sitting up a little straighter, his dark eyes wide. He had the air about him of a startled wild animal, trying to decide whether to run away or to try to stay and talk. There was something innocent about his face though, Newt thought, and it annoyed him. He didn’t want to feel any softness towards the other boy. He didn’t want the vulnerability. “No, it’s fine. Are you… okay…?” 

It was a weird question, Newt thought. Had he really been so hostile that Thomas thought he’d only come over if he wasn’t okay? Or needed something, maybe?

Although, in fairness, why _was_ Newt going over there? He wasn’t sure he knew himself.

“Yeah, I’m fine, mate.” He said casually, trying to act more calm and un-bothered about it all than he was. “Just, uh… saw you sitting here on your own and thought I’d come say… _howdy…”_ He said the words awkwardly, knowing he must sound like an idiot. Had they really been best friends before? It felt like trying to pull water from a rock now.

Thomas huffed out a breath of air, as though he wanted to laugh but wasn’t sure how. “Howdy.” He answered with a small smile. He seemed sad, really sad, and that same wave of frustration and guilt washed over him. That same resentment of feeling like he should be apologising for something that happened to him. 

“How… are you?” Newt asked. He stifled a groan, because god, this was so fucking awkward.

He half smiled again, and their eyes locked for a moment. Newt thought idly that they were more honey than brown. “Not great,” He admitted, “But that’s not your problem.” 

Well, what the shuck was Newt meant to do with that? 

An extended, painful moment of silence passed between them. “Is there, uh… anything I can do to help?” Newt asked slowly. 

Thomas laughed, an actual laugh, and Newt wasn’t sure what to make of it. It was a nice sound, he thought, but that only irritated him. He refused to be another person who talked about Thomas as if the sun shone out his shank arse. “What’s funny?” Newt asked, trying to sound unaffected by it all. Trying to sound like it didn’t set his teeth on edge being around Thomas at all. 

“You’re just so… _you,_ still.” He said with a small smile. Newt’s brows furrowed, not understanding. He waited for Thomas to elaborate. “You sound thoroughly tired of my shit, but you’re still asking me if you can help out. It’s just… it’s very you.”

“So I was always long-suffering and tired, but constantly trying to help you?” Newt tried to understand, trying not to seem amused, though the statement was sort of funny. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” Thomas was smiling, and it was hard to deny that there was something charming about him. Engaging. He supposed he could see why people would follow him. Why _he_ had said he would follow him anywhere. Newt was still trying to make sense of the letter though, as it happened. 

“So I was… what? Your long suffering sidekick?”

The smile on Thomas’ face faded instantly, and Newt hated himself for wishing it’d come back. This was worse. Harder. When he looked sad and worried, Newt didn’t know what to do. At least when he was smiling, Newt could just try to forget himself. Forget his role. Forget who he was meant to be to them.

“No, never.” He said slowly, “You were the better man. I’m sure you still are.”

He scoffed awkwardly, unsure what to say. Instead of anything he could say in words, he stuffed a hand into his pocket, pulled out the necklace, and held it out. 

Thomas simply stared at it, like it might bite him.

“Go on, then.” He said insistently, holding his hand out closer to Thomas, but not quite touching him. It was weird, the feeling in his stomach. He was scared, though he had no idea why. For all his distrust of Thomas, he wasn’t actually afraid of him. Was he?

Thomas reached out slowly, and took the necklace out of Newt’s outstretched hand.

“Why?” He asked, skeptical. 

“It was the last thing I ever wrote. Maybe the only thing I ever wrote. And I wanted you to have it. So you should have it.” He said resolutely. He wasn’t sure when he had come to the decision, but now that the words had left his mouth, he knew he believed them. Thomas should have the letter.

Thomas held it gently in his hands, like he was scared he might break it or that it might disappear. It was hard, Newt decided, to retain any anger against this boy. He seemed so genuinely distraught. So genuinely relieved to have it back in his hands again. It was obviously meant to be there. 

“I loved you.” Newt said it as a statement, but really, it was more of a question. He wanted to understand. Wanted to know why he had left only Thomas a letter. Why he had talked about following the boy anywhere. He hadn’t said the words, he wasn’t sure why, but it was hard for Newt not to see the devotion in his own words. Maybe that was why Thomas frightened him. Shouldn’t something like this be his choice?

“We were best friends.” Thomas said slowly, as if that answered all his questions. Even the unspoken ones. It didn’t.

“Just?” He asked.

“Just…?” Thomas repeated, confused, “I wouldn’t call it… _just._ We were willing to do anything for each other. All of us. Minho and Fry and Gally too.” 

Newt blinked, trying to fit this into his understanding. Maybe that was really all it was. Maybe Newt had been simply impassioned in his letter, weak with emotion about his impending death and wanting his friend to know he was loved. Still, something about that didn’t ring true to Newt. There was another option, he supposed. The unsettling reality that he may have been in love with a boy who didn’t feel the same way. He supposed it didn’t matter much now, if he didn’t even remember Thomas, but it was a sad thought anyway. 

He could ask more explicitly. He could outright ask Thomas if there was anything romantic between them.

Only fear stopped him doing just that. 

The simplest answer, the one most likely to be true, is that Newt had written that letter in the way he did because Thomas hadn’t felt the same, and because he couldn’t die without saying it, even if the words weren’t explicitly put on the page. Maybe he knew himself. Maybe he feared himself. But he wasn’t sure he could ever write the words unless he meant them. 

“Why did I write a letter?” Newt asked, though really, only he could answer that. “Why didn’t I just say the words to you?”

Thomas blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe because you knew you were running out of time?” He suggested.

Newt frowned, “But… I must’a had my wits about me enough to write the letter in the first place. Why couldn’t I have just said the words?” Unless he was too afraid to say them out loud. Unless he was afraid of rejection. 

“I don’t know.” Thomas said quietly, “Maybe you wanted me to have something to hold onto.” 

Maybe. That actually wasn’t a bad theory. Newt glanced back over at the brunette boy, and watched the way he put the necklace back on, tucked it safely underneath his shirt. He treated it like it was precious and valuable, and Newt wondered if he had really meant so much to this unfamiliar boy. 

He felt a pang of longing. He didn’t even know Thomas, not really, but he longed for a relationship where they genuinely cared this much for each other. In whatever capacity it was that they cared for each other. He wished he could feel it back. He wished he could have whatever this was, genuinely, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because WICKED had taken that from him, and he resented the hell out of it. He wasn’t sure he had ever resented anything more in his life.

“Who was Chuck?” He asked, abruptly, thinking of one of the other things he had wanted to talk to Thomas about.

“Huh?” Thomas seemed shaken from some thought, and Newt wondered if he was always this way. Scattered and distracted.

“Chuck? I talked about him in the letter. About how important it was to remember Chuck, Alby and Winston. I was hoping you could tell me who they were.”

“Oh.” He stared off into the distance, and Newt took the moment to examine his face. He couldn’t be older than twenty, but he looked too tired to be so young. There were deep bags under his eyes and Newt wondered if he ever slept. He himself didn’t, so he supposed he couldn’t judge Thomas much for it. He had an expressive face, Newt noted. He couldn’t always read it, but he could always see emotion written right there, all over his face. He suspected Thomas was very probably a bad liar. 

Newt wondered suddenly if he looked the same. He’d never even seen his own face. At least, not in his living memory. Not outside the clips WICKED had shown him, which didn’t feel much like him anyway.

“Chuck was… he was like all of our little brother. The youngest in the glade by quite a lot. Everyone loved him. He uh… he died. Gally killed him, actually.” He seemed to wrestle with something, then added, “Well, not really. WICKED… took control of Gally. Used him to kill Chuck. He was aiming at me though.” 

Horrific. That was the only word Newt could think. This was fucking horrific. No wonder these people all looked at him in that broken, expectant way. They’d witnessed so much terror, Newt was a living embodiment of it all. One last awful kick in the guts from WICKED. One last reminder of all the pain. He was surprised they didn’t all hate him. He wondered if it would’ve been better for them if they’d never found him.

“Alby was the leader. He wasn’t always nice to you, really, but you were his second in command. It seemed like you did a lot of the… social part of the job. Like, the looking after. The day to day communication with people. After Alby was stung, you were the leader, really. But then he got… killed by a Griever and everything kicked off with Gally and… well, it all went to clunk.” He half smiled, but it seemed deeply sad.

“Winston… he travelled with us through the Scorch, after we escaped the maze. He was a good guy. Loyal. He backed us when almost everyone turned on us. Well… when everyone turned on me and you guys backed me, I guess.” He frowned, seeming momentarily troubled, but not elaborating any further. “He wasn’t immune either, and he got a really bad wound when we were in the Scorch. He was turning into a crank really quickly…” He frowned, “Some of us didn’t want to leave him, but you… you gave him our gun, and said goodbye, and left. I never understood how you did it. Respected his wishes and let him go like that. I… I could never do the same.”

Newt frowned. The explanation felt heavily subtextual. “Is that what I asked of you? To respect my wishes and let me go?” He asked, and his voice sounded hushed and weirdly afraid. It was a big question and he knew it, but he figured he at least owed Thomas the chance to explain.

“Yeah,” Thomas answered slowly, not meeting Newt’s eyes or even looking close to him. Newt knew he should let the conversation die, but he was still so curious. Thomas was the only person who could answer some of these questions. 

“But you did it?”

There was a moment of quiet. Newt kept his eyes locked on Thomas’ profile, watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “I didn’t want to. I tried not to.” His voice wobbled, and Newt felt guilty for bringing it up at all. On a whim, a shooting of sympathy or muscle memory or something else he couldn’t name, he rested a hand on Thomas’ wrist, in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “But you… you were trying to bait me into it. Telling me if I was ever your friend then I had to…” His voice caught, and he cleared it, “I was just trying to hold you back until the others got back with the serum. But you were fighting and I didn’t know how to stop it. You were swinging the knife at me and I—“ He cut off sharply, and Newt let his eyes fall away, suddenly feeling guilty for watching his face so intently. It felt like a private moment he hadn’t earned access to. “I was so close. Only a couple more seconds and…” Newt didn’t look at him, but he thought Thomas was crying.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Everything. What I said. What I asked you to do. What happened. Forgetting. I’m just… sorry.”

Thomas glanced up at him, and Newt felt trapped in place by the intensity of the other boy’s gaze. “The last thing you owe me is an apology, Newt. Please don’t apologise to me.”

He had already known most of this information logically. Dejectedly. But hearing it from Thomas, like this, it was different. He almost felt like he could _feel_ the other boy’s sorrow, and it helped him to understand. Why it happened, what it meant, how to move forward. It hurt, in the kind of icy, aching way that only heartbreak could. Because he was dead. By all rights, he was dead. He was meant to die in that street, and all that was left of him was the shell WICKED created. Maybe that was all he ever would be now. 

Newt opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off when he heard familiar voices a little ways away. Minho and Gally were walking side by side, arguing animatedly about whether or not Minho could fight a bear. Newt conjured an image of a bear. He could see it in his mind’s eye, though he’d never seen a bear before in his living memory. The Swipe was particularly irritating that way. 

Either way, the moment of held breaths and tense gazes was over, and Newt pulled his hand back into his lap, waiting for the other two immunes to approach.


End file.
